There's a curious affinity between famous footballers and highly popular video game Fortnite. 

The likes of Mesut Ozil and Neymar are known to be enthusiastic players and the multiplayer battle royal appears to have now driven a permanent wedge between Tottenham Hotspur star Dele Alli and his long-time girlfriend Ruby Mae. 

The Sun has reported that 'Maele' are no longer an item, with the 37-cap England international and the luscious model splitting up after first getting together back in 2016. 

It's claimed they called it off ahead of Valentines Day and have already unfollowed each other on social media which is about as definitive as a break-up gets in the modern world. 

It would of course be incredibly reductive to blame the split purely on the 24-year-old's lust for video games, but The Sun claims it was a factor with one unnamed friend of Mae telling them he was "spending too much time playing Fortnite."

Alli's obsession with the game had seen Mae poke fun at him before, but it appears to have become a symptomatic problem within their relationship. 

The Sun's source claimed Mae had become "incensed" with Alli's behaviour and further explained "their relationship has been turbulent, but it now feels very much like the end. Ruby is sad but looking out for herself now.

“She had enough of Dele’s good-time nature, and packed up her things. She’s looking after number one from here.”

GIVEMESPORT's Christy Malyan says...

I'm sure plenty of couples up and down the country can relate to this. Certainly during what has been a stay-at-home 12 months in the UK, plenty of relationships have likely been tested by one half devoting too much time to video games and inadvertently neglecting their partner. 

But to bring the matter back to sport, it's an important reminder that when footballers are struggling on the pitch, we don't always get the full picture to understand why that might be the case.

It's been a really tough season for Alli who has been afforded just 114 minutes of game-time in the Premier League and rarely shown the level of the form that had him widely regarded as one of European football's top midfielders only a few years ago.

Clearly there's a lot more to it because the former MK Dons prodigy's last truly great season was 2017/18 when he notched up 19 Premier League goal involvements.

Nonetheless, problems at home do go some way to explaining his recent difficulties and it's perhaps no coincidence that since the breakup, the midfielder's produced his best performance of the season - Wednesday night's showing against Wolfsburg in the Europa League where he grabbed one goal and two assists.