Sir Geoff Hurst declined interview over historical sex abuse at Chelsea The World Cup winner was Chelsea manager between 1979 and 1981 and sacked Eddie Heath, the club’s chief scout, shortly after taking charge

England World Cup winner Sir Geoff Hurst declined a formal interview as part of the review into historical sex abuse at Chelsea and told the club’s chairman Bruce Buck in a voicemail that he did “not wish to get involved in anything with this matter at all”, according to the Geekie report.

Although there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing on Hurst’s part, he was manager of Chelsea between 1979 and 1981 and sacked Eddie Heath, the club’s chief scout at the time, shortly after taking charge. The report’s review team were therefore keen to interview him.

Heath, who died in the 1980s but is accused of sexually abusing several youth players at Chelsea, took the club to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.

Heath’s dismissal

The review team’s report, in a section illustrating “the limitations of a Review process dependant upon voluntary cooperation,” states: “The reasons given to the Industrial Tribunal for the dismissal of Mr Heath were related to his performance of his role as a scout. The report of proceedings makes no mention whatsoever of any matters relating to sexual abuse or related misconduct. At first sight, this appears to be somewhat at odds with a number of comments by witnesses that (whatever criticisms there may be of his sexual conduct) Mr Heath was a good and effective scout. The Review Team wished to explore this with Sir Geoff.”

According to the report, on 5 October 2017, in response to a letter inviting Hurst for an interview, the former forward called the review team and said he would like to help but that he “did not have any relevant information”.

The report says that a team member’s note of the conversation records that Sir Geoff said Mr Heath was dismissed because he “did not think that he was doing a good enough job and had absolutely nothing to do with any of the allegations which have been made against him”. Hurst added that he “categorically was not aware of any inappropriate behaviour” and “had not heard any gossip in relation to that sort of behaviour”.

‘I do not wish to get involved’

The review team, led by Charles Geekie QC, then wrote a second letter, under cover of a letter from club chairman Buck, on 11 October, seeking a formal interview. But on 27 November, the report says: “Sir Geoff left a voicemail message for Bruce Buck.

“He thanked Mr Buck for his letter and said that he did ‘not wish to get involved in anything with this matter at all’ and did not ‘wish to respond in any way shape or form’.”

Two days later, a third and final letter was sent to Hurst. The report states: “He confirmed the things he had said on 5 October 2017 and said that he could not help any further. Sections of the draft Report were sent to Sir Geoff for comment. He has not responded to these sections.”

Hurst’s management team did not respond to request for comment last night. Chelsea did not respond to a request for comment last night.