Ex-Fulham Ladies captain Ronnie Gibbons ‘groped’ by Al Fayed

Final month, the previous supervisor of Fulham’s ladies’s group Gaute Haugenes informed the BBC that additional precautions had been put in place to guard feminine gamers from Al Fayed.

Haugenes, who managed the group from 2001 to 2003, mentioned members of employees grew to become conscious that the late billionaire “appreciated younger, blonde women”.

Gibbons was reported to be angered by these feedback.

Chatting with the BBC on Friday, Haugenes, who’s Norwegian, mentioned he may utterly perceive her frustration.

“All I can say is I’m actually sorry for saying one thing that might have put extra wooden on the fireplace. I truthfully thought we protected the gamers,” he mentioned.

“I knew that he appreciated Ronnie as a result of all the women, they joked about it. However I believed he was an outdated man, she was a younger lady. I used to be 30 on the time, I didn’t suppose individuals his age had been interested by intercourse.

“I might need been naive, it might need been a number of the language obstacles that I didn’t decide up particulars of their joking.”

He added that he had not been conscious she had been informed to go to Harrods.

Requested whether or not membership employees may have achieved extra, he mentioned it was troublesome to know what may have been achieved otherwise.

“However it is best to have had a system that picked up issues like that,” he mentioned. “It was earlier than I used to be a supervisor that she went there.”

He added: “It’s unhappy to listen to she had these type of experiences as an expert participant.”

The CEO of Girls in Soccer (WIF) informed the BBC there are “important challenges” within the feminine soccer surroundings.

“It brings to the fore the prevalence of energy in balances and the danger in the direction of ladies within the trade working each on and off the pitch,” Yvonne Harrison mentioned.

“For gamers it’s actually necessary that they’re protected, they’re safeguarded and that their voices are at the start listened to – and that’s the similar off the pitch as properly.”

The Justice for Harrods Survivors group mentioned the abuse Gibbons had endured from Al Fayed was “one more horrible instance of the monstrous abuse aided and abetted by the companies he owned”.

They added: “We salute our shopper’s bravery and are proud to advocate for Ronnie and others at Fulham who’re trying to find justice. We are going to do no matter we will to raise the lid on abuse, regardless of the place it was perpetrated, or who it was perpetrated by, together with any enablers of Al-Fayed’s abhorrent behaviour.”

A spokesperson for Harrods mentioned it was “completely appalled” by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by Al Fayed.

It mentioned: “These had been the actions of a person who was intent on abusing his energy wherever he operated and we condemn them within the strongest phrases.

“We additionally acknowledge that in this time his victims had been failed and for this we sincerely apologise.”