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England Woman’s Team

Mattspur

ENIC IN
Jan 7, 2004
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Less than 24 hours after England beat Russia 6-0 to open their World Cup qualifying campaign manager Mark Sampson has left his position after getting caught up in allegations of racism, despite being cleared by 2 separate independent enquiries.

The alleged incident surrounds comments made by Sampson to Chelsea’s Emilia Aluko after learning that her family would be flying over from Nigeria to watch her play Sampson said something along the lines of, “I hope they don’t bring Ebola over with them”. The comment was made at the time of the Ebola outbreak and Aluko says she laughed at the time but later felt ashamed that she had and reported Sampson to the FA. Sampson didn’t call Aluko up to the squad again and she was unable to add to her 102 caps.

Looks like the FA want to sweep it under the carpet and with a new manager the controversy will disappear.

I’m unclear whether the comments were racist or just distasteful. Just thought I’d see if anyone else here has a view on it they’d like to share.
 
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Marty

Audere est farce
Mar 10, 2005
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Feel a bit both ways here. On the one hand he clearly said something inappropriate or that could be construed as such and in a public, leading role has to face the music for that. On the other hand, he was cleared by two enquiries.

Weird that they take action now so long after the Euros tbh.
 

spoddams

Active Member
Jan 15, 2007
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I've read that further allegations are about to come out about him from pre-England times. That's what brought this on.... How true that is I'm not sure. He has done a brilliant job, but with all this negative attention...
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
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I've read that further allegations are about to come out about him from pre-England times. That's what brought this on.... How true that is I'm not sure. He has done a brilliant job, but with all this negative attention...
Yeah whilst he was at Bristol City, apparently these allegations are more serious than the previous ones.
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
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And although we shouldn't really speculate, if the new allegations are worse i can't help but feel they'll be of a sexual nature....what else could be worse than racism?
 

riggi

Well-Known Member
Jun 24, 2008
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And although we shouldn't really speculate, if the new allegations are worse i can't help but feel they'll be of a sexual nature....what else could be worse than racism?

Double racism?
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
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Regardless of whether the allegations are true or not the FA's going to look farcical yet again. If we really want to improve football in England then we should start by replacing the FA with an organisation that's fit and proper.
 

mill

Well-Known Member
May 21, 2007
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Seems he's been sacked for something that happened in the past and has already been dealt with
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
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Seems he's been sacked for something that happened in the past and has already been dealt with
Not really , sounds like something happened whist he was at Bristol academy that wasn't dealt with.
Inappropriate behaviour at an academy is pretty worrying.
 

mill

Well-Known Member
May 21, 2007
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37,100
Not really , sounds like something happened whist he was at Bristol academy that wasn't dealt with.
Inappropriate behaviour at an academy is pretty worrying.

Was judged to 'not pose a risk working in football' so it was looked into at the time. TBH until more comes out we can't really draw any conclusions
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
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Not really , sounds like something happened whist he was at Bristol academy that wasn't dealt with.
Inappropriate behaviour at an academy is pretty worrying.

Bristol Academy was the team name because the club was funded by the Bristol Academy of Sport after Bristol Rovers couldn't afford to run it any longer. I'd wager the majority of their squad would have been in their 20s and 30s.
 

Gb160

Well done boys. Good process
Jun 20, 2012
23,646
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Was judged to 'not pose a risk working in football' so it was looked into at the time. TBH until more comes out we can't really draw any conclusions
Who's to say that the right judgement was reached?
I'd imagine that more evidence has come to light from this recently, but you're right though, no point guessing as I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.
 

Gbspurs

Gatekeeper for debates, King of the plonkers
Jan 27, 2011
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Is that Ebola comment even racist? Given there was an outbreak at the time I think most were concerned with anyone traveling from infected regions regardless of colour. Hell there were even travel bans, is that racist?

I guess a flippant remark about an African country could be regarded as xenophobic but comedians get away with worse every day. Stupid situation.
 

LSUY

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2005
24,010
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DKL-7w-XoAAACvZ.jpg
 

hellava_tough

Well-Known Member
Apr 21, 2005
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So what actually happened at Bristol?

The FA, quoted in the Metro this morning, reiterated that no one broke the law and it wasn't related to a criminal matter.

They also stated that Sampson had been sacked because of what happened at Bristol in 2014.

So what did happen? An off-colour joke? An inappropriate sexual advance on a consenting adult? The whole thing seems a bit spurious to me, seeing as it happened 3+ years ago, there was already an investigation and the current England Women's football team seem to still like the guy.

Is this just typical FA behaviour; namely, when things get a little hot, throw someone under the bus and get back to business as usual (free lunches and sports tickets for the old-boys)?

(cue some terrible revelations being released, leaving me with egg-on-face :LOL:)
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
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Is that Ebola comment even racist? Given there was an outbreak at the time I think most were concerned with anyone traveling from infected regions regardless of colour. Hell there were even travel bans, is that racist?

I guess a flippant remark about an African country could be regarded as xenophobic but comedians get away with worse every day. Stupid situation.

Not racist but xenophobic and disrespectful...apparantely he asked a mixed race player how many times she'd been arrested...kinda tells you what kind of person that he is. The comparison to comedians is strange seeing as it's their job to make people laugh.
 

spoddams

Active Member
Jan 15, 2007
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The Guardian has a bit more about the Bristol Academy situation.

"Ultimately, though, Sampson has gone for something entirely different, involving a safeguarding investigation that went on for the best part of a year, a breakdown in communications within the FA structure and, it appears, some particularly dubious behaviour from his time at Bristol Academy where there are first-hand reports that some of the club’s trips were more like a coming together of stag- and hen-dos.

No doubt more will come out in time but it is not going to be pretty when it involves a football manager, a number of backroom staff, a women’s team and a culture where, according to reliable evidence, some of the more sensible players became increasingly alarmed about what was deemed acceptable."

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/sep/20/mark-sampson-fa-england-buck-passing-daniel-taylor

I think a lot more will come out in time. I’ve heard rumours things haven’t been great in the background for a while now.

It’s sad, he did great things for the women’s team, and I hope whoever his successor is will get similar results. It has been an exciting time to follow women’s football.
 
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