In a revealing interview, the striker opens up on her problems with the Football Association after telling the organisation about what she felt was ‘discrimination, victimisation and bullying’ in the England camp

Why is it so important to you, after everything that has come out, to tell your side of the story in response?

Until now I haven’t felt the need to speak publicly about what happened. One, the terms of my agreement with the Football Association meant I wasn’t able to speak about the facts of the case unless they became public and, two, I didn’t think it was needed because I had been trying to move on and put it behind me.

Eni Aluko accuses England manager Mark Sampson of ‘racist’ Ebola remark Read more

I was shocked when it came out. I’d kept it confidential for a long time. This whole debacle was very unexpected for me and after the last week, seeing a lot of half-truths, a lot of misrepresentations and a lot of insinuations that I have pretty much been lying, I think it is time for me to say: ‘Look, these are the facts, these are what my claims are – ie discrimination, victimisation, bullying – and explain the truth. My mum always says to me that ‘the quietest person in the room is often the wisest’ and I think there has been a lot of noise from the Football Association. A lot of: ‘panic, panic, panic … put this out, put this out …’ I have no need to lie. And I haven’t needed to bow to pressure to speak and panic because I know the truth.

This all started because the FA asked you in May 2016 to take part in a ‘culture review’, is that correct?

The letter from Dan Ashworth [the FA technical director] said they wanted me to be part of this exercise as an ‘iconic England player’. They felt I was in a position, after 11 years on the England team, to speak about the culture. For many years I’d been a mouthpiece for the FA. If you look on YouTube you will see an interview with me for Show Racism the Red Card, wearing an England shirt on behalf of the FA. I know I would never have participated in an exercise like that [the culture review] and lied. Yet the irony is that lying would have saved me. If I had been untruthful we wouldn’t be having this conversation. To have said ‘everything’s hunky-dory, everything’s fantastic, I’ve had two great years with [the England women’s team manager] Mark Sampson and the culture’s great’ would have saved me. Telling the truth was more risky but I told the truth because I thought it was confidential. I trusted the FA.

As well as your complaints about alleged bullying and discrimination by Mark Sampson, your report to the FA included an account of what happened to a mixed-race team-mate (we are going to call her ‘The Player’ as she has asked not to be named) at the China Cup in October 2015. Can you take us through the specifics?

It was a midfielders’ meeting. I was not in that meeting but the player in question has confirmed it and I have records of our conversation on the day the comment was made. We have spoken about it many times – that they were talking about the game, about pressing, when Mark Sampson made an analogy about getting a caution, like a police caution. Mark then addressed her individually and said: ‘You’ve been arrested before, haven’t you? Four times, isn’t it?’ He didn’t say it to anybody else. It was said to her alone, the only mixed-race player in the room. Every other player was white. She confirmed she felt extremely uncomfortable. I believe that question was directed towards her because she’s mixed race. And I also believe he has made comments to me that, again, have been because of race.

Can you elaborate if there is a particular incident you mean?

We were in the hotel before the Germany game [in November 2014]. Everybody was excited. It was a big game. On the wall there was a list of the family and friends who were coming to watch us and I just happened to be next to Mark. He asked me if I had anyone who would be there and I said I had family coming over from Nigeria. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Nigeria? Make sure they don’t bring Ebola with them.’

I remember laughing but in a very nervous way. I went back to my room and I was really upset. It might have been easier to take if it was about me alone. Lots of things had been said about me over those two years but this was about my family. I called my mum and she was absolutely disgusted.

Initially I didn’t put it in my report [to the FA] because I didn’t feel I could prove it and I didn’t want to make any accusations based on something I couldn’t prove. Subsequently, however, I found the text messages where I had talked to The Player about it. There was one where I wanted her to know: ‘You know what, it’s not only you, it’s happened to me, too.’ I’d told her what he had said. She said: ‘Wow, that is unacceptable.’ That’s subsequently been put to the FA in correspondence [from the Professional Footballers’ Association]. The FA cannot say: ‘This is the first we have been told that Mark Sampson made a statement to Eni Aluko about her family and Ebola.’

I said I had family coming over from Nigeria. ‘Oh,’ Mark said. ‘Nigeria? Make sure they don’t bring Ebola with them.’

Presumably you believe the FA inquiry should have made it a priority to speak to The Player, bearing in mind her obvious importance to the case?

She has put it in writing to confirm it happened. Yet the FA has had two investigations and nobody has been in contact with her. They were having an investigation but they did not bother to speak to the person to whom a comment with racial connotations – in my opinion – was made. I think that’s pretty astonishing. Can you imagine, thinking back to when Roy Hodgson [as manager of the England men’s team] made the comment about the ‘space monkey’, if the FA had an inquiry, clearing him of any wrongdoing, but without bothering to speak to Andros Townsend, the player he was talking to? Well, that’s what has happened in this case.

The FA has now admitted to the Guardian it is true, namely The Player was not interviewed, but the explanation is that it is because you didn’t let them know her name.

Well, I believe the most basic of investigations, let alone one conducted over a three-month period by an experienced barrister [Katharine Newton], would have been able to identify who The Player was. There were only a few people in that meeting that day and only one was mixed race. I identified where they were, what camp it was and when it was. I identified it was a midfielder. I told the FA what club she played for, that she was mixed race and where she was raised. I mean, it’s not difficult. The most basic investigation, if they really wanted to find the truth, would have found out who it was. The barrister could have got her name in minutes if they really wanted to consider that evidence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eni Aluko in action for Chelsea against Wolfsburg in the women’s Champions League last season. Photograph: NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The FA has also accepted, as you say, that it gave you the initial verdict of the internal inquiry before speaking to a player, Lianne Sanderson, who was one of the key witnesses to your complaints. The FA says this was due to timing and logistical difficulties as well as pressure from the PFA to reach a quick conclusion. Can that be a valid excuse?

It’s so important for everyone to know this. The first investigation [by the FA] concluded there was no case to answer without bothering to speak to The Player and before speaking to the witnesses I had suggested. I was told the verdict and it was actually afterwards, a number of days later, that Lianne was contacted. In other words they had made their conclusion before speaking to key witnesses. I’m sorry but I cannot take [an inquiry like] that seriously. If this was a genuine search for the truth, an inquiry would never have reached its conclusion before speaking to the witnesses.

I have to ask why was it that the players who were likely to say something detrimental were the ones who weren’t spoken to? And why was it that the players who may have said something in favour of the team culture, it was really easy to speak to them? I’d suggested Lianne, I’d suggested Anita Asante and I suggested The Player. I told the FA where to go for key evidence. After that I couldn’t take the investigation seriously if they couldn’t even be bothered to speak to key witnesses. They [the FA] also told us [for the internal review] they had not watched the video recording of the meeting at the China Cup before coming to their conclusions. At that point I believed that the investigation was a farce.

After you had first spoken to the FA about your grievances, what happened next?

About a week later I had a visit from Mark Sampson to Cobham, Chelsea’s training ground. I thought he was going to talk about my role in the next England camp. I had been assured it was a confidential report and that my name would be anonymised so I could speak freely. Instead he told me he was dropping me. When I asked why he said it was because of ‘unlioness behaviour’. I was shocked but I said: ‘OK, can you give me some examples? You need to give me some examples because as far as I’m concerned I played 90 minutes in the last game against Bosnia, I thought I had a good camp and nobody said anything to me about being badly behaved.’ The best he could come up with was that I had looked withdrawn in meetings.

So, to clarify, a player with 102 caps, someone who has been described by the FA as an icon of England football, and the player who went on to win the Golden Boot, was dropped for seeming withdrawn? Or do you think he had maybe found out about your complaints?

I had been assured it was a confidential report and that my name would be anonymised so I could speak freely.

I don’t think it is a coincidence. I believe it was retaliation. I’d played for England for 11 years and, within a week or so of speaking to the FA to participate in the culture review, I had been dropped from the squad for the first time in my career. I was playing very well at the time. I’d scored 12 goals in 16 starts for England under Mark Sampson. I wasn’t willing to accept the excuse that my behaviour was bad because I wasn’t given any examples whatsoever of bad behaviour. I emailed Dan Ashworth and said: ‘Dan, I’ve just had a visit from Mark. I was part of your report a week ago – I have to ask whether there is a link here.’ He said: ‘No’. But I was an England player until I talked in the culture review and decided to be truthful. It’s important to make that point because some people might think: ‘Oh, she was dropped by England, of course she’s going to say negative things.’ It came the other way around.

You subsequently had a meeting with a senior FA executive and the HR official who was overseeing the internal review. What happened next?

I was in Barcelona, on a weekend away, visiting a friend, when I got an email from the FA – within 24 hours of that meeting – saying the anti-corruption unit was investigating my work as a sports lawyer. I worked as a lawyer for a football agency and the FA rules state that, if you’re a footballer, you can’t represent other players. But I wasn’t representing players as an agent. I was working as a lawyer, which I had been doing for five years and there had never been a problem.

As part of that investigation I had to deliver submissions explaining what my role was with the agency and what my role was with Chelsea. To suggest I had any influence at Chelsea when it came to signings was ludicrous. I had met [the Chelsea chairman] Bruce Buck once in my life. I put that in a letter to the FA but they told me that, based on my submissions, I was breaking the rules.

People don’t know this: I lost that job. I had to give it up, which hurt me a lot. I’d been a sports lawyer for five years and it wasn’t a secret to the FA. If anything, the FA had celebrated it. Yet all of a sudden, they decided it warranted an investigation.

Do you think the timing of that investigation – you being notified a day after the meeting with the FA – was merely a coincidence?

No, I think it’s far more sinister. There are too many coincidences, I’m afraid. I can’t say what their motive was but I took it as a threat at the time. That’s how I felt. The minute you start threatening that [my work as a lawyer], at the very time I had been dropped by England too, of course I’m going to feel threatened.

What I thought was incredibly poor practice was that it was all in the same email. ‘Thank you for our meeting and, by the way, another investigation is being launched and this time it’s into you.’ If it was a separate investigation, why didn’t I get a separate email from the FA’s anti-corruption unit? By including it in the same email I felt the message was: ‘We’re a team here at the FA.’ That’s how I took it. And the minute you start getting punished for raising grievances, that is victimisation. I can’t come to any other conclusion. [Newton accepted the timing of the investigation was “unfortunate” but did not consider it “in any way a retaliatory act” or to be related to race.]

Our information is the PFA has written to the FA saying it is “not a genuine search for the truth” and “a sham that was designed not to establish the truth but to protect Mark Sampson”. The FA then appointed an independent barrister to conduct a second investigation – why did you decline to be part of that inquiry?

I said no because, by that stage, I couldn’t take both investigations seriously. I didn’t trust the process. How could I trust the process if the FA couldn’t be bothered to speak to the key people? At that point the investigation into my work with the agency was under way. I felt that whatever I said would be used against me. My mind-set at the time was: ‘You’re going to try to shaft me.’ It wasn’t: ‘OK, you want to hear my side of the story.’ It was: ‘You’re going to try to use it against me.’

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eni Aluko taking on Wales in a World Cup qualifying game. She was the top scorer as Mark Sampson’s team reached the tournament in Canada in 2015. Photograph: Tony O'Brien/Action Images

You clearly believe all this shows discrimination against you and that the FA has victimised you.

I am shocked about how malicious this feels. I feel like there is a committee of people saying: ‘Put this out to make it look like this, put out this half-truth to make it look like this.’ I don’t know what’s coming next, that’s how bad it has got. I feel so on edge. I’m not the best sleeper in the world anyway but it’s horrible to think what people are doing. It’s absolutely horrible and it all goes back to the point that I raised issues of race discrimination.

Race, for some reason, is this taboo subject that everyone avoids talking about. The minute you are brave enough to talk about race, you are in a difficult situation. That in itself is discrimination: the mere fact I am in this position. I probably can’t play for England again. I’ve lost my England career despite being the leading scorer in the league last season.

I believe all these things are happening because it’s a conversation about race and this is a big problem in the world right now. Herman Ouseley [the chairman of Kick It Out] said it. On the pitch there are clear punishments when it comes to issues involving race. Behind closed doors we don’t know the FA processes.

We do know The Player has not been picked since this incident. Lianne Sanderson hasn’t been picked since she complained about why her 50th cap was forgotten on the same trip that the 100th cap of a white player was remembered. Lianne asked: ‘Why me?’ The 50th cap is a customary celebration. It’s standard. There is a presentation in front of the team and you have a special shirt with ‘50th cap’ written on it. It’s a big deal. She asked why she had been forgotten and she hasn’t been picked since.

Anita Asante disappeared without trace despite playing for one of the best teams in Europe. Danielle Carter scored two hat-tricks for England and doesn’t get picked any more – why? There are lots of national teams that are very white, not just England, and I’d hate to say we should be picked because we’re black or mixed race. But are we all bad characters? Are we all terrible players? That’s the question I think people need to be asking because a pattern is emerging here, as clear as day, and my belief is that it’s a culture.

I was under no illusion people didn’t like me and that FA staff and players were almost encouraged not to like me. A perception was created around me that ‘she’s a troublemaker, she’s a know-it-all’ or ‘a pain in the arse’, as was said by Mark Sampson after I’d scored a hat-trick in one game. There are other players who have scored hat-tricks for England and they weren’t addressed as a pain in the arse. So why was I? That, I believe, is the definition of bullying – insults, in derogatory terms, directed at one individual with the intention to undermine them in a group of people. Unfortunately that is one of many examples.

For months one member of staff used to talk to me in a fake Caribbean accent. He thought it was OK to do that, he thought it was funny. I believe he was empowered to do that because of the culture. We pleaded it [in submissions to the FA] but they chose to ignore it.

Yes, in a football environment industrial language is used. I’ve been at Chelsea five years and been the butt of many jokes. And I give it back sometimes. That is the beauty of team spirit in a healthy dressing room. I’m not a sensitive, precious person. I’ve been in the [England] team for 11 years, I’ve been through ups and downs. I’ve played for boys’ teams. I’ve played for Chelsea, at the top level, and I’ve been dropped by Chelsea before but I can recognise something toxic when I see it. This is a culture that has systematically dismissed certain players. There is lots of talk about being the most together team in the world – I’ve truly never felt so isolated as I was in that team between 2014 and 2016.

What did you make of Katharine Newton’s report, published by the FA last Thursday, setting out the reasons why Mark Sampson was cleared of any wrongdoing?

The findings don’t explain why certain people, including The Player, weren’t spoken to. Yet the FA would like us to take it as an unequivocal conclusion. People weren’t spoken to under oath. People weren’t cross-examined. It’s not a high court judge. It’s a paid barrister’s opinion, based on half the evidence, without speaking to key witnesses – yet speaking to players in the team who have a vested interest in keeping themselves in the team. I believe those players are terrified to speak out. They are not going to speak out and, bearing in mind what’s happened to me, I wouldn’t either in their position. Yet there was no explanation whatsoever in her report why nobody had even contacted The Player.

I empathise with the barrister, if I’m honest. I believe she was deliberately chosen as a black woman. Her name has been plastered everywhere. I believe she has been given only half the information. Her report states that she had watched the video of the meeting and nothing was said. The phrase she uses about The Player is that it was ‘something she thought had been said’. Yet we asked for the video and they wouldn’t give it us. A lot of meetings were recorded on that camp. I don’t know what video she has seen – and why won’t they give it us? In any event it may be the video was not turned on at the time the comment was made.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eni Aluko has played for Birmingham, Charlton and Chelsea – as well as clubs in America – and made her England debut at the age of 17 in September 2004. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Guardian

Is that it now, your England career over?

In my report I put ‘I cannot play under this manager again’. That was in May 2016. I later felt that I shouldn’t quit so I retracted that statement, changed my position and wrote back, on repeated occasions, to the FA that I would still like to be available for selection if discussions about some of my views could be addressed. They can’t say I have quit England. I have a central contract and I have been available for selection for a long time, over a year. He hasn’t picked me and that’s fine. That is Mark Sampson’s prerogative.

I am proud to say I got 102 caps. I tweeted on the day of my 100th that I was ‘grateful’. Because that’s what it felt like inside: ‘It’s been awful for two years but ...’ Unfortunately for me, my England career has massively been soured. Even when I won my 100th cap, what people didn’t see was everything that happened before that – which was me in floods of tears – because of how I felt it was handled. At that point I was thinking: ‘This is awful, this is not what I want.’

I had asked Mark Sampson if there was a possibility I might play because the game was in Florida and, if so, my family wanted to fly over to watch me. I believe the inquiry tried to spin it as if I was demanding to play. That’s not the case. Mark said: ‘I can’t tell you, we never tell players what we are going to do with the team.’ But on several occasions I’ve been told in advance if I was playing, by Mark himself. For other people’s 100th cap, they were given advance notice. I wasn’t asking for anything extra. Casey Stoney had to pull Mark Sampson and say: ‘Can you at least speak to Eni?’ I was very upset at this point because I thought: ‘He’s going out of his way now – he’s going out of his way to undermine a special achievement and make me feel undeserving of what other people have had.’ I spoke to the team psychologist and asked him to help me make sense of what was going on. My point was: why couldn’t I be treated the same as everybody else?

How was covering England in the European Championship as a pundit for Channel 4?

I was in two minds at first. I remember speaking to my agent and saying: ‘I’m not going to do it.’ I was apprehensive because I didn’t want to be seen as ‘the girl who missed out, the girl who got the Golden Boot and missed out’. I didn’t want that tag. I didn’t want everything I said to be judged with that view. But at the same time I thought: ‘Actually, I’m in a good place to look at something objectively and say whether it was good or bad without emotional attachment.’ And it was a wonderful opportunity for me, as someone who enjoys punditry. I would like to think I’m a bit of a trailblazer for women and that in 10 years there will be lots more women commentating on football. I wasn’t going to shy away from that just because of negative experiences.

I have been available for selection for over a year. He hasn’t picked me and that’s fine. That is Mark Sampson’s prerogative.

Can you tell me about the settlement with the FA and why you accepted it?

After what I believed were two flawed investigations, I lodged a claim for an employment tribunal and I was preparing to go to court. The FA didn’t speak to The Player and had ignored key evidence so that’s why my lawyers wrote to them saying: ‘This is not a genuine search for the truth’, telling them we had no choice but to go to an employment tribunal, which would be completely independent.

When you lodge a claim it becomes public record and at that point settlement discussions began. Why? One, because I believe the FA didn’t want to go to court and, two, I believe they didn’t want it to be on public record that I’d brought a claim against them.

The FA have publicly put out the line the settlement was to ‘avoid disruption’ before the European Championship but I didn’t settle on that basis. I settled on the basis that I’d been advised by a leading QC, an expert in discrimination law, that my case was extremely strong. I settled on the basis that, had I gone to an employment tribunal, I would have been successful on the evidence. It [the settlement] was on the basis of what I would have achieved had I been successful. And I believe the FA knew it was a strong case, too. I cannot categorically state why the FA settled but I believe it was on the basis that my case was strong and to suggest it was to ‘avoid disruption to the European Championship’ it’s definitely not my position.

As for the silencing part it is important to say this whole issue started as a confidential exercise requested by Dan Ashworth. I had no intention or agenda for public notoriety or exposure.

One of the terms of the settlement agreement was: this is to be kept confidential but, if it goes public, you are allowed to speak about the facts of the case but you cannot say anything that would bring the FA into disrepute. The FA have left that bit out of their statements that I was free to talk. Again, I believe that is another half-truth. But I think that when people understand the situation, they are going to understand: ‘Well, of course, she’s not going to risk saying anything.’ What was I supposed to say – this situation with the FA was lovely? I wasn’t going to risk being sued for breach of contract for telling the truth. Fortunately, the position was clarified, legally, last Friday and I was told I can now give what I believe is the full story.