Aluko’s FA blackmail claim on day of her ‘vindication’

Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn has denied trying to “blackmail” Eni Aluko into making a statement that the governing body is not institutionally racist.

Aluko’s claim came during an incendiary appearance before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee over the FA’s handling of the Mark Sampson affair.

The 30-year-old striker told the panel she has not received a “second tranche” of the £80,000 settlement she agreed with the FA earlier this year to avoid going to an employment tribunal following her allegations against the former England Women’s team manager.

Aluko said she was told by Glenn that she would get the rest of her money, to compensate her for loss of future earnings, if she “wrote a statement” clearing the FA of racism. She said she “categorically refused to write it”, considering it to be an “appalling” request that “bordered on blackmail”, and added she has never suggested the FA is institutionally racist.

An hour later, when Glenn faced the 11 MPs alongside FA chairman Greg Clarke, technical director Dan Ashworth and HR director Rachel Brace, the chief executive refuted Aluko’s claim.

He said the FA had stopped the second payment, due after this summer’s European Championship, because of a tweet Aluko sent on August 30.

That Twitter message said: “At least we now know the FA’s stance on derogatory racial remarks by an England manager. Ignore, deny, endorse. In that order.”

Glenn said the FA took legal advice and decided it breached their agreement “not to defame each other”.

But he claimed there was no demand for a statement exonerating the FA of institutional racism, simply a request for Aluko to retract the tweet and make a clarifying statement, which he thought she had agreed to do but has not.

Asked if Aluko will be paid the money now, Glenn said: “We will reflect on it.”

That exchange was indicative of a four-hour hearing that left Aluko “vindicated”. This third attempt at uncovering the truth found that Sampson had made racist remarks to Aluko in 2014 and teammate Drew Spence in 2015.