A PREMIER League footballer has been jailed today after groping a woman in a nightclub and then punching her in the face, breaking her nose, when she rejected his lurid advances.

A PREMIER League footballer has been jailed today after groping a woman in a nightclub and then punching her in the face, breaking her nose, when she rejected his advances.

Wigan striker Marlon King was celebrating his wife's pregnancy and scoring a winning goal just hours earlier as he approached women in the Soho Revue Bar in London last December.

When a slightly-built university student, 20, became the latest to recoil from his touch, he lost his temper and in an outburst of “completely gratuitous violence” lashed out, “smashing” her to the floor, shattering her nose and sending two other revellers flying.

The 29-year-old, from Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, claimed he was a victim of “mistaken identity”.

But he jailed for 18 months this afternoon after he was unanimously convicted of sexually assaulting the woman and causing actual bodily harm at Southwark Crown Court.

Wigan chairman Dave Whelan has since said that King will never play for the club again.