English Premier LeagueRacism scandal in Chelsea: Former young players go public with claims
Chelsea

Two ex-Chelsea players open up to say they regularly were subjected to racial abuse by the former assistant manager from an early age of 12.

Chelsea

Racial discrimination is a vice that has circulated in football. Earlier before, we came across players subjected to the abuse. Just to mention the likes of, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku, Tammy Abraham among others.

Racial discrimination has found its way in Chelsea. Two former young players revealed their racial encounter with the former assistant manager.

The two ex-Chelsea young players were speaking out for the first time since Chelsea published a report into the scandal in August.

One player said that on his first encounter with Gwyn Williams, at the age of 12, the coach made racial remarks about his facial features.

The first encounter

“I remember the first time I met Gwyn Williams he said how big my lips and nose were.”

He also kept across that Williams had also made a racially charged comment about the size of his penis.

“And that became my first encounter at the age of 12.”

The second ex-player also said Williams regularly referred to him using racist language.

He said, “I used to come into training scared to make a mistake. Even on the pitch, it affected me because I couldn’t relax. I was thinking if I have a bad game, everyone is going to say, “you black this” or “you black that”.’

As part of his response, Williams denies all allegations.

Neither of the two had evidence to their inquiry that found young black players had been victims to a “daily tirade of racial abuse” in the 1980s and 1990s.

About Williams

Williams joined Chelsea in 1979 as a youth development officer. He rose to be the assistant manager and left the club in 2006.

His lawyer wrote to Chelsea denying all allegations of racism.

He claimed the extracts of the report shown to him were “biased, untrue, unfair and artificial.”

The report, commissioned by Chelsea and written by the charity Barnardo’s, had evidence of a toxic, racist environment.

Why this time?

Both ex-Chelsea youth players said it had felt impossible to report their allegations all the time. Reason being that Chelsea had no safeguarding policy in place at the time and there had been no other official to turn to with a complaint.