Added this to the Mark Sampson thread but this column in the Times today is a well written piece which shines a light on both sides.

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There have been a few casualties of the Eni Aluko affair — Mark Sampson as the England women’s coach, the FA’s battered credibility — but nothing has suffered more than balance and nuance. A set narrative tells us that Sampson is a fool, the FA still not fit to govern and Aluko a deeply wronged woman who should be held up as a champion of a reformed organisation.
This is the story that was written up in the aftermath of the FA’s apology to Aluko last month and thunders along, crushing any inconvenient or contradictory details. This newspaper, along with most of the media, has helped it to gather speed, largely unchallenged.
But at some point it becomes important to recognise when a narrative has gone badly awry, especially when this version is almost unrecognisable to many of the England women’s squad. Some feel that the story has become so one-sided as to have become a horrendous distortion.
Those players are so alarmed that some held a meeting this week, involving the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), to discuss how to speak out and to defend themselves, especially when they hear Aluko suggest that a refusal to support her is tantamount to turning a blind eye to racism. “Is the togetherness we keep banging on about actually being put into action or is it just a hashtag on Twitter?” Aluko had asked, before adding: “Some of this is just a lack of appreciation of what racism is.”
Some of her former team-mates are, understandably, appalled at the suggestion and say that it wilfully ignores so much wider context. They say that this is not about race at all but so many other issues, such as witnessing her disruptive behaviour as an England player, a furious refusal to accept being sidelined.
Defend Aluko? Some demand to know why they should when they regard many of her complaints against the departed Sampson not just as unfounded but grossly unfair. Sadly, you are not hearing any of this — at least not first-hand — from players because they dare not say anything at all. To speak out is to risk a backlash.
“The players are terrified of saying anything now,” one source said. “To question Eni on anything is to be shouted down, or accused of racism. Some have taken hell on social media. It is deeply unfair.” Indeed, it is reasonable to ask who feels bullied now.
Of course it is not easy to put forward other sides of the argument when Aluko has won the public relations war so spectacularly. In the hearing in front of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee last month, she was articulate and sharp, every bit the trained lawyer with a first from Brunel.
She was a considerably more impressive witness than a blustering Greg Clarke, the FA chairman, or Martin Glenn, the chief executive, who sat there in ill-disguised rage, making a mess so much worse. Vindicated on two counts that Sampson had used a discriminatory remark to one player and an ill-judged joke to her about the ebola virus, Aluko had the FA on the run. They are still a long way from recovering.
Tracey Crouch, the sports minister, said this week that Aluko should be brought in to drive cultural reforms of the governing body, though she did not pause to ask how many team-mates would want the Chelsea Ladies forward as their chosen representative of the team or the wider women’s game.
Aluko had exposed some dire FA practices, including a lack of a grievance procedure, and Sampson was gone, but was that the whole story? Not by a long way. When Aluko tells the BBC that she is “proud the truth has been corroborated”, it must not be allowed to pass without qualification.
In fact, the vast majority of 20 complaints against Sampson, including bullying and victimisation, were rejected and, in many cases, appear to fully back up the coach’s argument that Aluko simply could not accept that she was no longer first choice. Some are so trivial and thin-skinned as to undermine her own argument, like complaining about a coach saying “f*** off, Eni” on tape when she lost possession or questioning how a squad review of a match failed to include any clips of her half-hour appearance off the bench as if this were somehow vindictive.
She lodged a complaint that Sampson had apparently failed to acknowledge her brother during a match at Stamford Bridge as a “retaliatory action” based on discrimination. Really?
As Aluko seeks to regain her place in the England squad, it is surely worth noting that Katharine Newton, the barrister who led the investigations for the FA, concluded that Sampson’s decision to drop the striker was entirely justified. “Sampson genuinely considered that your off-the-pitch behaviour was having a detrimental effect on the team,” Newton wrote.
“In particular he considered that the major issue is your attitude and behaviour when you are not playing compared to when you are playing.”
Her un-Lioness behaviour is said by witnesses to have caused particular frustration because it went against extensive team bonding conducted with sports psychologists. Aluko insists that she must be a team player to have amassed 102 caps, scoring 33 goals, and there is no doubt that she was a key member of the England team for many years. But what if her behaviour changed — knowingly or otherwise — as she came to be left out of the XI? What if she began to show that frustration more visibly and became such a difficult squad member that coaching staff felt it was actually undermining what Sampson was trying to build?
What if young players felt that Aluko could have done much more to help and encourage them, rather than acting as though they were a threat? Does she even know that players asked to change rooms? Did she realise that team-mates felt that she switched off as soon as she realised that she was not in the starting XI?
These are questions that must be asked — especially by Aluko herself — if she is serious about returning to the international set-up. She did not make the 26-player squad named for World Cup qualifiers against Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kazakhstan, the first of those in Walsall on November 24, but she has been in the goals for her club, coming off the bench to score for Chelsea Ladies in a 2-2 draw away to Reading on Sunday.
These are extremely sensitive areas to stray into. Across sport — and any work place — it is not easy to be a whistleblower, to speak out against a boss.
Aluko encouraged team-mates to bring forward any issues with Sampson and she will feel vindicated given that he is gone and the FA was forced to apologise. But, from numerous conversations, it has to be asked how England players should come to feel afraid to give their story in public and to defend Sampson who, it should be noted, has not committed anything that amounts to a sackable offence while an employee of the FA (and is considering legal action for his dismissal over a relationship in a previous job).
Some of the women’s squad feel that there is nowhere to turn, and no wonder. To the PFA? There is wariness given that the organisation acted for Aluko during her dispute with the FA.
To Women In Football? The organisation does much good work but, in taking a staunch pro-Aluko stance, some point out, uncomfortably, that Aluko’s agent is a director.
Turn to the FA? It does not know if it is coming or going, having yesterday lost another member of Sampson’s coaching staff, Lee Kendall, who resigned. Others may follow, dismayed at the governing body’s terrible mishandling of this all along.
Meanwhile, the women’s squad prepare to gather next week with the sad certainty that there will be many more reporters than usual, interested less in the football than the fallout. The players want to put out a statement expressing their togetherness, but how to speak collectively when there will be a range of opinions from those with grave concerns about Aluko’s behaviour to those eager simply to move on?
It is a horrible position for them but, whatever emerges, consider that there is a lot more to this than a single misleading narrative of one wronged footballer. That silence Aluko hears from her team-mates? It does speak volumes.