FA executives to face parliamentary inquiry over Mark Sampson affair

Senior executives at the Football Association are to be summoned to a parliamentary inquiry to face questions about the controversial investigations that have cleared Mark Sampson of making allegedly racial remarks to two of the England women’s players, the Guardian can reveal.
Officials from football’s governing body will asked to explain the processes involved in the internal review that has been described by the Professional Footballers’ Association as “not a genuine search of the truth” and “a sham which was not designed to establish the truth but intended to protect Mark Sampson”.
At the same time the FA will face questions about the three-month independent inquiry – carried out on behalf of the organisation by the barrister Katharine Newton – in the wake of Eni Aluko’s claims that both investigations were a “farce” and the calls from Kick It Out, the PFA and the shadow sports minister, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, for the FA to start again with an entirely new process.
Aluko will be invited to give her version of events to the culture, media and sport select committee after her interview with the Guardian on 21 August when a player with 102 England caps alleged that Sampson had told her to make sure her Nigerian relatives did not bring Ebola to Wembley.
Lianne Sanderson will also have the chance to air her grievances, as another of the long-standing England players who have questioned the culture under Sampson, and the FA will then be asked to respond to the various complaints and explain, for instance, why the two inquiries took place without speaking to the player, Drew Spence, who was at the centre of the first allegation.
Spence, then 22, was on her first England call-up at the China Cup in October 2015 when, according to Aluko, Sampson left her “distressed” during a midfielders’ meeting by asking: “Haven’t you been arrested before? Four times isn’t it?” She has subsequently backed Aluko’s version of events in writing but was never asked to give evidence which, in theory, could have played a huge part in shaping the findings of the inquiries.
The FA is also facing new questions about who it did interview after sources within the England set-up revealed their information was that none of the players in the relevant meeting – not just Spence – was asked by either inquiry about what they had heard. The FA, presented with that evidence, has chosen not to deny it.
The FA has decided not to comment other than to point out that Newton’s report says she has seen a video, filmed by FATV, of the relevant meeting and that she is certain Sampson did not say the alleged comment. Aluko’s camp have requested the video to check if it is the correct meeting, or if it has been edited, but the FA has declined to pass it over.
In a controversy that is threatening to go to the top of the organisation, the FA has already opened itself to criticism by claiming it did not previously know Spence’s identity and blaming Aluko for “refusing” to help. Aluko, a qualified lawyer, supplied evidence that clearly states it was a mixed-raced midfielder who was raised in south London, played for Chelsea and on her first England camp. Spence was the only mixed-race midfielder on that trip.
Sampson has insisted his “conscience is clear”, denying that he made either remark, and said last week that it was time to move on now the allegations had been “investigated thoroughly” but the select committee wants to form its own conclusions.
“We’re very concerned about what we’ve seen,” Damian Collins, the committee chairman, told the Guardian. “When you look at the case of Eni, as well as the concerns that Lianne has raised, it would be impossible to believe that a male figure who was such a senior figure in the England team would have been treated in the way that Eni has been. There would have been a lot more serious investigation into the allegations that have been made.
“We want to know why that’s been the case and we want to hear from the players themselves about the way in which the FA has dealt with them. There is a concern now that other players [potentially making similar allegations] would be less likely to come forward now because of the way that Eni has been treated.”
A date is being arranged for mid-October and the FA is also likely to be asked why it gave Aluko an £80,000 settlement, including a confidentiality clause, when neither inquiry supported her complaint that she had been the victim of bullying and discrimination.
Aluko says her 11-year England career effectively ended within two weeks of raising her complaints in the FA’s Culture Review but Sampson and the FA say the decision to remove last season’s Golden Boot winner from the squad was completely unrelated. Sampson’s only interview so far has been with two media outlets in what the FA has described as a controlled environment. However, he is due to hold a wider press conference at St George’s Park on Tuesday. Newton has declined the Guardian’s requests for an interview.

SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94