Has Thierry Henry blown the whistle on his marriage?

Henry's departure to Spain has given rise to suggestions that his relationship with his English model wife, Nicole, has hit turbulence.

And last weekend, Nicole was noticeably absent when Henry attended the Paris wedding of his friend, basketball player Tony Parker, to Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria.

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Friends say the relationship began to buckle under the pressure of the Arsenal player's £16million transfer to Barcelona last month.

While French star Henry, 29, had been keen to move for some time, Nicole, 27, is thought to have wanted to stay near her family in London.

She is also said to have become progressively less entranced by his famously mercurial temperament. Henry and Nicole looked the epitome of glamorous romance when they appeared together in an iconic Renault TV commercial.

Henry described her as the embodiment of "va-va-voom," a catchphrase that entered the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defined as "the quality of being exciting, vigorous or sexually attractive".

After a two-year relationship, the couple married in 2003 at Highclere Castle, near Newbury and now have a two-year old daughter, Tea.

However, friends and family were saying nothing about the reported difficulties in the couple's marriage.

Henry's agent Darren Dein, who was the best man at the Henrys' wedding, said he was unable to comment. And Nicole's stepmother, Annette Merry, said at her home in Croydon, Surrey: "I can't comment. It's a family situation."

Henry's own family also split up. His mother, Marylese Sandia, is divorced from his father, Antoine Henry, who has returned to his native Guadeloupe.

Henry grew up in the tough Paris suburb of Les Ulis where his precious skills were spotted and at 13 he was signed by AS Monaco.

But his full repertoire of skills did not emerge until he joined Arsene Wenger's Arsenal side in 1999.

There he won two league titles, three FA Cups, became the club's highest-ever scorer with 226 goals and won the Premiership Player Of The Season award twice. He has also had a dazzling career in the French national side.

In 1998 he was the top scorer in the World Cup-winning side and starred in France's Euro 2000 triumph. But this year, after an injury-blighted season with Arsenal, he signed for the elite Spanish club.

He cited the departure of the Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein – father of his best man – and uncertainty over manager Wenger's future as reasons for his decision.

Nicole's reluctance to go to Spain seems not to be linked to her own career.

She continues to be in demand as a model but, apart from a small part as an air hostess in the Bruce Willis film The Fifth Element, she has failed to develop a career as an actress.