New Ukip leader Paul Nuttall caught out claiming to be a professional footballer on his CV

NEW Ukip boss Paul Nuttall has been caught out by The Sun claiming to be a former “professional footballer.”

Grilled on claims that he had sexed up his CV, the new chief of Britain’s fourth party told the BBC on Sunday: “I have never claimed to be professional.”

Mr Nuttall instead said “I played for five years for Tranmere Rovers as a schoolboy and a youth team player.”

But now The Sun can reveal Ukip’s own election leaflet where Mr Nuttall was pictured and quoted as “a former professional footballer”, railing against the EU meddling in the beautiful game.

On the leaflet “former professional footballer Paul Nuttall MEP” says: “The EU is trying to take over football.”

He warned: “They’ll try force us to put their flag on the England shirts and fine us if we don’t.”

“They also want to start meddling in transfers, contracts and the rest.

“In Ukip, we say: Hands off England. Hands off football. And you can stick you EU where the sun don’t shine.”

The Sun understands that the leaflet was produced sometime after a following a controversial 2013 European Commission report recommended reforming the football transfer system.

It was circulated by Ukip in the run up to 2014 European Parliament elections where Mr Nuttall stood successfully as an MEP for the North West region.

Since being elected as Nigel Farage’s replacement two weeks ago, Paul Nuttall has been dogged by claims that he exaggerated his past career.

It emerged that in an online LinkedIn profile attributed to the MEP it was claimed he received a PhD in History from Liverpool Hope University in 2004.

But on Sunday, Mr Nuttall said he had “never claimed” to have a PhD — the top academic degree.

In a testy exchange on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Nuttall said: “It’s not on my website. It’s on a LinkedIn page that wasn’t put up by us and we don’t know where it’s come from.”