Sorry to post 2 topics in quick succession but what is going on with her?
As far as I can see it - she made allegations which were investigated and decisions made.
Even though her allegations were dismissed some bright spark decides to give her £80,000 for some reason so what happens - she surfaces again with more allegations.

Following on from the allegations of "bullying" cyclists recently, I suppose all coaches will have to be really nice and try not to shout at them all the time. Fast forward a few years and we don't win as much and we'll have an enquiry to find out what went wrong.

If you can't take it, do something else!

Someone criticised her and she didn't like it. She then threw the discrimination/race card at them so the FA paid her £40k.

massive whitewash by the FA.

pun intended.

Very seedy affair all round. Surprised to read she plays for Chelsea of all clubs.

The usual suspects will be along soon with their pitch forks and torches.

I heard something about a comment made to her about her parents and ebola. Could be rubbish though.

boatshed bill wrote:I heard something about a comment made to her about her parents and ebola. Could be rubbish though.

Appears to her word against the manager who denies it.

Bordeauxclaret wrote:Appears to her word against the manager who denies it.

Like i said, could be rubbish.

But have you heard the same accusation?
If true it's in really poor taste.

It just seems a far more serious and personal allegation than the first one that she made on somebody else's behalf !?! which got thrown out.

Strange if you ask me.

quoonbeatz wrote:massive whitewash by the FA.

pun intended.

Two independent reviews have been carried out to my knowledge.

They found no evidence of any wrong-doing.

Independent reviews that hardly interviewed anyone involvwd

Cleveleys_claret wrote:Independent reviews that hardly interviewed anyone involvwd

Have you read the Independent review? If so how many were interviewed?

boatshed bill wrote:Like i said, could be rubbish.

But have you heard the same accusation?
If true it's in really poor taste.

Yeah it was in the interview with Aluko this week. She was asked if anyone was coming to watch her, she said she had some family members coming over from Nigeria to which Sampson made the comment.
That's her story anyway.

Bordeauxclaret wrote:Yeah it was in the interview with Aluko this week. She was asked if anyone was coming to watch her, she said she had some family members coming over from Nigeria to which Sampson made the comment.
That's her story anyway.

I thought it was something like that.
her word against his?

Cleveleys_claret wrote:Independent reviews that hardly interviewed anyone involvwd

All I know for certain about who was interviewed is that Aluko refused to cooperate with the process.

She lied

Aluko's version of events has been backed up by 50-cap Lianne Sanderson

The usual suspects on both sides of the great divide have made their minds up, none of them having heard or seen any of the evidence. That of course is how spurious claims or cover-ups succeed. all grist to the mill for the narrow minded bigot of any stripe.

And there was me expecting her to turn down the money, saying, "It's not about the money". Of course it isn't.

Didn't the first independent review of Hillsborough clear the police?

Were Liverpool fans playing the scouse card?

None of us know but Independent reviews don't always get it right. Referees are independent but they don't always make the "correct" decisions.

Lianne doesnt support alukos version at all. She says she is a witness but talks about culture which wouldnt change under a different manager.

I thought it a bit rich to talk about their being a problem because the manager insisted they all conformed to a set standard. Every manager dreams of a squad that does what its told.



When I come back from my injury, which will be soon, I'll
be able to be selected for England again.

"Will I be selected? Probably not, because they know I'm a key witness in this thing. You're trying to do the right thing but that shouldn't mean that your England career suffers because of that.

"If they changed the coach, it wouldn't change the culture. I do think it's a thing the FA need to make better.

"I don't think it's just Mark. But these allegations that have been made are very serious and I think they have tried to downplay them.

"It's something that's been going on for a long time. People ask 'why now?' but it's nothing to do with the Euros, we've been wanting to talk about this for a long time."

When contacted by BBC Sport, the FA said it had nothing further to add.

Walton wrote:Aluko's version of events has been backed up by 50-cap Lianne Sanderson

She has spoken in favour of Aluko but that's all I can ascertain.

I don't doubt there's been a falling out. Quite possibly, a sports coach has spoken to his players in an aggressive manner. Perhaps he told a lame joke too, although he vehemently denies it, and that allegation was only made after Aluko made her original complaint. For reasons I cannot find, Aluko only chose to raise this matter after the independent investigation by a QC found no evidence of wrong-doing.

All seems rather humdrum to me.

Nothing worthy of publicly decrying a man as "racist" and certainly nothing worthy of £80,000.

All seems like it's typical of the litigation and offence culture that prevails in certain professions.

Rowls wrote:
All seems like it's typical of the litigation and offence culture that prevails in certain professions.

You mean like the legal profession, of which Aluko is a member?

UpTheBeehole wrote:You mean like the legal profession, of which Aluko is a member?

Exactly.

steve1264b wrote:Lianne doesnt support alukos version at all.

Spot on from what is currently available on the BBC website.

In fact the only "allegation" made by Sanderson is that there is a culture at the training camp where "everyone must conform". That seems like the ideal kind of culture to inculcate in a sports team to me and not much of a damaging revelation.

Apparently it's not just Sampson it's an intimidating atmosphere which The FA has failed to sort out for some time. You get toxic environments sometimes it usually requires a complete clear-out.

Might not be "racism" - but the whole setup is probably like British Cycling full of cliches and a bullying culture that some thrive on but is demoralizing to others.

She's a full time lawyer whose England career looked to have come to an end. She claims racism and agreed out of court, which probably saved the fa money in the long run, as I understand the payment was without prejudice

Goalposts wrote:She's a full time lawyer whose England career looked to have come to an end. She claims racism and agreed out of court, which probably saved the fa money in the long run, as I understand the payment was without prejudice

The FA say the £80,000 was purely to cause as little disruption as possible to the squads build up to Euro 2017. They wanted Sampson and the squad to be focused on the football itself rather than certain allegations.

It's a little strange that England didn't select the leading scorer in the previous season's WSL for Euro 2017 isn't it.

Caernarfon_Claret wrote:Apparently it's not just Sampson it's an intimidating atmosphere which The FA has failed to sort out for some time.

It sounds like a regular sports environment to me.

Goalposts wrote:She's a full time lawyer whose England career looked to have come to an end. She claims racism and agreed out of court, which probably saved the fa money in the long run, as I understand the payment was without prejudice

It's cost the FA £80,000 in payment to Aluko on top of their legal costs and the cost of two investigations (which Aluko chose not to cooperate with) one of which was concluded by a QC. QCs don't come cheap.

The allegation of a "racist" comment was only made by Aluko after the two investigations found no evidence of any wrong-doing. It hinges on her word against that of Mark Sampson and refers to a very lame joke about the ebola virus.

Personally, I would dearly love to pocket £80,000 if somebody made a lame joke about, for example, my parent's Yorkshire heritage.

Seems like there is a culture among certain people whereby feeling "offence" is a trump card over everything and anything else. As the FA's own ex director of communication Simon Johnson tweeted:

"No-one should have to justify why they perceive a comment as racist."

This does seem to fit in entirely with Aluko's actions. She doesn't have to justify herself and she can say what she likes with apparent impunity (and £80,000) in spite of there being two investigations -which she refused to cooperate with- which have concluded that there is no evidence of any wrong-doing.

If I ever need a solicitor, I'd opt for one who was good at justifying things rather than one who doesn't feel the need to justify herself.

Since the original claim of "bullying" has been found to be without evidence, the claim has warped to one of "racism" - and therefore no longer needs justifying in the eyes of certain people.

I don't think that's justifiable myself. I think that racism should be tackled and defeated because that is the justifiable way to deal with it.

I don't think uncorroborated claims made after failed accusations of "bullying" should be rewarded with large sums of money.

strange that someone with everything to lose, in terms of her england career, would speak out about problems with the management culture in the england women's team, when asked by the FA.

what would be the point?

quoonbeatz wrote:strange that someone with everything to lose, in terms of her england career, would speak out about problems with the management culture in the england women's team, when asked by the FA.

I imagine she fell out with him and instead of thinking "he's the boss, I'd better do as he says because that's how the chain of command works" she thought something along the lines of "well, I'm feeling personally upset about this therefore I have a right to make a complaint about it all".

That's how the culture of litigation, complaint, suing, harassment etc etc works.

Equally you could have asked, why would she complain about something and then not even cooperate with the investigation? What has she got to win by doing that?

The answer, apparently, is £80,000.

She wont have told The Guardian her side of the story for free, and I personally don't think the article helps her cause one bit. It actually leaves more questions than answers.

One that immediately springs too mind is why the mixed race player who The Guardian tells us is extremely easy to workout who it is as not come forward. She may not have been asked anything by the review but if everybody already knows who she is what as she to hide by publicly outing Sampson if she was personally offended. These are direct quotes attributed to Sampson by Aluko (who in the prison reference wasn't actually there). So yes he did say it or no he didn't would do from the other player.

The whole thing just doesn't stack up.

Rowls wrote:I imagine she fell out with him and instead of thinking "he's the boss, I'd better do as he says because that's how the chain of command works" she thought something along the lines of "well, I'm feeling personally upset about this therefore I have a right to make a complaint about it all".

That's how the culture of litigation, complaint, suing, harassment etc etc works.

this all came from dan ashworth asking her to participate in a 'culture review'. she didn't make a complaint.

Rowls wrote: Equally you could have asked, why would she complain about something and then not even cooperate with the investigation? What has she got to win by doing that?

she did co-operate with the first one. she didn't co-operate with the second one because the first wasn't handled properly.

if the fa has nothing to worry about, in terms of there being any evidence, why pay the settlement?

quoonbeatz wrote:this all came from dan ashworth asking her to participate in a 'culture review'. she didn't make a complaint.

She made significant sounding complaints in the stupid sounding "culture review". She complained of "bullying and discrimination". She might have been asked for these opinions but that doesn't mean she didn't make the complaints.

quoonbeatz wrote:she did co-operate with the first one. she didn't co-operate with the second one because the first wasn't handled properly.
if the fa has nothing to worry about, in terms of there being any evidence, why pay the settlement?

I'll have to take your word that she cooperated with the first investigation. She therefore chose not to cooperate with the independent investigation led by Katharine Newton QC?

I have to agree with you on the point of the FA making the settlement. They have conducted two investigations and have found no evidence of any wrong-doing. Why the hell they then go an pay somebody that amount of money is just flabbergasting and wrong.

Scrap women's football, soft arses.

KRBFC wrote:Scrap women's football, soft arses.

Get in!

Senior execs from the FA will have to report to a Parliamentary Inquiry after this whitewash:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ko-england

I listened to an interview with her. She says she has witnesses for her complaints but they weren't contacted during the investigation. If that's true something isn't right.

The FA didn't even take a statement from the player who Sampson offended. They had one intention, and that was to protect Sampson at all costs, for some reason.

UpTheBeehole wrote:Senior execs from the FA will have to report to a Parliamentary Inquiry after this whitewash:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ko-england

Cheers for posting that, made for interesting reading.

Sampson's been caught lying out of his arse in yesterday's press conference.

A shifty character who can't keep up with the lies he's told.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... luko-ebola

So she herself had been cracking jokes in a car about Ebola? Is that right? Sampson denied remembering that conversation. She's now unhappy about an alleged joke he cracked about Ebola that he also doesn't recall?

sampson leaving his job.

quoonbeatz wrote:sampson leaving his job.

Good. He's a massive tit.

'twas a witch hunt

Dyche might fancy this one.

Whatever happened the guy has been hounded out of his job by this person.

Smacks of sour grapes cos she didn't get picked, ho hum!

Wonder if the new boss will pick her?

Giftonsnoidea wrote:Whatever happened the guy has been hounded out of his job by this person.

Smacks of sour grapes cos she didn't get picked, ho hum!

Spot on. They've progressed really well under Sampson and just beat Russia 6-0. Just another example of PC gone mad and an over sensitive wannabe looking for attention. Doubt the new manager will pick her, no way they'll risk playing with fire.