fake imagesFormer Fulham Women captain Ronnie Gibbons alleges she was “groped” on two occasions by the football club’s former owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
The former Harrods boss tried to “forcibly” kiss her in her segment in 2000, when she was 20. she told The Athletic site.
“I hope that speaking my truth and finally telling my story will help me heal and get rid of the shame, embarrassment and pain that I have carried for years,” she said.
Lawyers from the Justice for Harrods Survivors team said they were representing four former players of the club.
Fulham FC told the BBC it was trying to determine whether anyone at the club “had been impacted” by Al Fayed.
“The club is deeply concerned to learn of the experiences recounted today by former women’s team captain Ronnie Gibbons,” Fulham said.
“She has our deepest empathy and support.”
Al Fayed owned Fulham between 1997 and 2013.
In 2000, the Fulham women’s team, known at the time as Fulham Women, became the first women’s football team in Europe to showcase talent.
Gibbons, who was hourly captain, said the club team pushed her into Harrods. Once in the luxury segment package, she said she was left unwanted with Al Fayed, who was in his 70s.
“He approached me and tried to kiss me on the mouth,” he said in their first meeting.
“He had his arms holding my arms, like at my sides, so I couldn’t push him away or anything like that. It was kind of a real controlling stance, like ‘I’m dominating you.’
“I used to say, ‘What am I doing here?’ “I felt like I had a big responsibility on my shoulders at that moment because we had turned professional.”
Gibbons said Al Fayed tried to kiss her forcefully again: “He may have even caught his tongue in me or something. I just know that I feel bad, actually I feel bad physically, when I walked out of there.”
fake imagesLater that summer, she said a staff member told her that Al Fayed had summoned her to Harrods again.
In the interview with The Athletic, he recalled: “This time he groped me. When I was announcing goodbye, he once grabbed me, trying to hold me directly and kiss me. Once he told me: ‘You’re not afraid anymore, are you? You don’t want to be afraid,’ “I’m not going to do the rest like this, you are very appreciated, you are a very particular lady.”
Fulham FC told the BBC: “We unequivocally condemn all methods of abuse. We remain within the fundamental criteria, whether anyone at the Club was or would have been affected by Mohamed Al Fayed in any way, as outlined in the recent studies.”
Last week, the The Metropolitan Police said it had received 40 new complaints. of people that included sexual assault and rape against Al Fayed.
The accusations follow a bbc documentary and podcastwhich contains testimonies from former Harrods employees who said the billionaire sexually assaulted or raped them.
Since the documentary first aired in SeptemberA further 65 women have contacted the BBC saying Al Fayed abused them, with allegations extending beyond Harrods and dating back to 1977.
‘Remaining precautions’
Last month, former Fulham women’s team coach Gaute Haugenes told the BBC that extra precautions had been taken to protect Al Fayed’s players.
Haugenes, who led the team from 2001 to 2003, said staff members noticed that the late billionaire “favored younger, golden women.”
Gibbons was reported to have been angered by these comments.
Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Haugenes, who is Norwegian, said he could completely understand their frustration.
“All I will say is that I really regret announcing something that would have added fuel to the fire. Honestly, I think we protected the players,” he said.
“I knew he liked Ronnie because all the girls joked about it. But I thought he was a worn-out man, she was a tender woman. I was 30 an hour, I don’t think the crowd is excited about sex.
“I may have been naïve, it may have been some of the language barriers that I didn’t catch details of their jokes.”
He added that he was no longer aware that he had been ordered to move to Harrods.
When asked if the club team would have achieved more, he said it was difficult to know what would have been done differently.
“But they should have had a system that caught these kinds of things,” he said. “It was before I was manager that she went there.”
He added: “It’s sad to hear that she had rough reports as a qualified participant.”
The chief executive of Women in Football (WIF) told the BBC that there are “demanding life situations” in the women’s football environment.
“It highlights the superiority of power balances and the possibility for women within the business to operate intermittently,” said Yvonne Harrison.
“It’s really impressive for the players that they are safe, protected and that their voices are heard at the beginning, and that is also out of touch.”
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said the abuse Gibbons had suffered at the hands of Al Fayed was not “another appalling example of monstrous abuse aided and abetted through the companies he owned”.
They added: “We salute the bravery of our clients and are proud to recommend Ronnie and others in Fulham seeking justice. We can do everything we can to lift the lid on abuse, no matter where it occurs.” was ever perpetrated, or by whom it was ever perpetrated, along with any facilitators of Al-Fayed’s abhorrent behavior.”
A spokesperson for Harrods said it was “totally shocked” by allegations of abuse carried out by Al Fayed.
It said: “These were the actions of an individual who intended to abuse his power wherever he operated and we condemn them in the strongest terms.
“We also recognize that up to this point your patients have failed and for that we sincerely apologize.”
