EXCLUSIVE: ‘My Ryan’s a rat and a womaniser – in fact, he’s a chip off the old block’: They haven’t spoken in years, but in an unflinching interview, Ryan Giggs’s father Danny admits the footballer learned a lot of his bad ways from him…

They share the same intense, dark-eyed gaze. The father’s raw athleticism has been handed down, refined and monetised by the son. 

But the similarities between Welsh former rugby player Danny Wilson and his famous son, ex footballer Ryan Giggs, run far deeper than the merely physical.

Here’s Danny, 67, on sexual fidelity: ‘I’ve been faithful to my current partner Dawn, but before that, no. I wasn’t. 

‘Not with any of my former partners. Aren’t most guys like that? We’ve all had a few girlfriends. Don’t put me on the spot about how many, but nowhere near as many as Ryan, God forbid!

‘And I’d settled down with Dawn by my 4srcs. Ryan should be surrounding himself with better people, getting a grip, calming down. Everything’s been given to him on a plate since he was 15.’

By this age, Giggs had recently joined Manchester United — and was already dating a 19-year-old; the ‘fittest girl’ from his school.

This was also the age at which his parents’ volatile relationship finally fractured for good. 

Danny exited his sons’ lives (Ryan has a younger brother Rhodri, 46) in a maelstrom of cheating, lies and recrimination which, shamefully, culminated in a scuffle with the boys’ mother, Lynne.

All this has an uncanny, sordid resonance. Lynne, he says, had met someone else a couple of months earlier. ‘It was after I’d had an affair. Tit for tat. We had a big argument about it and I lost it for a moment. I regret it to this day,’ says Danny.

This week, the former Manchester United star and ex Wales manager, was cleared of assaulting his ex-girlfriend, PR executive Kate Greville, 38, following a row about his infidelity.

Greville, accused Giggs, 49, of causing her actually bodily harm and of controlling and coercing her during their relationship between August 2src17 and November 2src2src; charges he has consistently denied.

He also pleaded not guilty to assaulting Greville’s sister Emma, 27, during a fracas at his home in Worsley, Greater Manchester, in November 2src2src.

And during a short hearing on Tuesday, Judge Hilary Manley directed Giggs was not guilty on all three counts.

A retrial had been due to start at Manchester Crown Court at the end of the month, after jurors failed to reach verdicts in August last year.

Such was the prurient appeal of the proceedings, Giggs’ spectacular sporting career has now been eclipsed by the sordid machinations of his personal life.

Among the most decorated footballers of all time — one of only 28 players to have made more than 1,srcsrcsrc career appearances — he is now, arguably, just as well known for being a self-confessed serial philanderer as he is for his sporting prowess.

This week Giggs’ father responded to his son’s acquittal: ‘He is a womaniser, no doubt about that, but it doesn’t make him guilty of assault. I’m pleased he’s been cleared of that,’ says Danny.

Ryan, Danny himself concedes, is something of a chip off the old block. Indeed, Giggs confessed in court that he had never been faithful either to his ex wife Stacey, with whom he has two children, Libby, 2src, and Zach, 16, or to any of his other girlfriends.