Gerrard’s teenage cousin claims the club have destroyed his life
Striker Bobby Duncan ‘bullied’, claims agent Accusations are a big mistake, says Carragher
Liverpool will strenuously reject a remarkable set of allegations from the agent of 18-year-old Bobby Duncan that the club have engaged in “mentally bullying and destroying the life” of the striker in refusing to countenance a sale or loan.
In a statement that alleged Duncan had “deep mental health issues” as a result of his career impasse, the player’s adviser, Saif Rubie, blamed the club’s highly regarded sporting director, Michael Edwards, for blocking the player moving away. Liverpool reject all allegations made by Rubie against Edwards and the club, and will defend their position.
It was alleged by Rubie that Duncan, who is the cousin of Steven Gerrard (right) and was top goalscorer for the under-18s last season, would never play for the club again despite having signed a contract that runs until the end of next season. As the statement circulated on social media, Rubie was accused by the former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, now a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, of damaging the player’s career. Following a Twitter exchange between Carragher and Rubie, it seemed that Duncan’s attitude might be changing. The teenager undid the retweet of the original statement post from Rubie and appeared to be listening to the advice of Carragher on Twitter that he should show more patience, having played for the first team in pre-season. Carragher tweeted that Rubie had made “a big mistake” and was “hurting” his client’s career. Carragher added: “I think @bobbyduncan999 should leave this guy [Rubie] before he [Duncan] gets sacked by the club.” In a series of allegations in a statement of more than 500 words, Rubie said that Duncan was being forced to “stay against his will” at Liverpool. He alleged that, as an agent, he had brokered loan deals with an option to buy worth “£1.5million upwards” for Duncan to move away from Liverpool. Rubie alleged that these were rejected by Edwards. He said that Duncan no longer wanted to be at Liverpool, although he did not specify why that was the case.
Rubie alleged that Duncan had been suffering stress as a result. He said: “The Liverpool hierarchy have shown zero consideration to that and have even gone as far as saying in writing that they will punish him and make him stay until January and beyond to teach him a lesson.”
“This is not really dignified behaviour from a club with the rich history of Liverpool, and one of their greatest-ever players, Steven Gerrard, happens to be Bobby’s cousin. It’s a sad state of affairs that a club such as a Liverpool can be allowed to get away with mentally bullying and destroying the life of a young man such as Bobby.”
The club issued a statement saying that for the sake of the player and the severity of the allegations made against Edwards they would not be responding in detail in a public forum. Duncan was signed by Liverpool from Manchester City’s academy last year and is wellregarded in development circles.
Despite his connection with Gerrard, there appears to be no advice sought by Duncan from the man who spent 26 years at the club as a junior and then a professional, and later returned as an academy coach. Carragher described Rubie’s decision to reference Gerrard in the statement as “embarrassing”.
Liverpool said they were “aware of and disappointed by the unattributed comments and unfounded allegations that have been made regarding one of our players.”