Just a week ago the London police announced that after the broadcast of the documentary BBC ‘Al Fayed: A predator at Harrods’ had received 40 new allegations of rape or sexual assault against the Egyptian, late owner of the London department store and father of Dodi, partner of Princess Diana of Wales who died with her in a traffic accident in the city of Paris in 1997.
According to police sources, there are “forty new testimonies, covering crimes such as sexual assault and rape during the period from 1979 to 2013.” Complaints will be “examined” to determine whether they may lead to prosecutions against persons other than themselves. Al-Fayed, died in August 2023 at the age of 94.
More than 200 women, who accuse the Egyptian businessman of sexual violence, who became the owner of Harrods in 1985 and the Fulham FC football club between 1997 and 2013, a period in which the London team was a Europa League finalist in 2010 .
The English press reports that among the billionaire’s victims there are four footballers. One of them, Ronnie Gibbonsformer captain of the Fulham club, has denounced the abuse in an interview with ‘The Athletic’. According to her testimony, she was summoned twice to Al Fayed’s office in central London, where she was “kissed, grabbed and groped.”
«I was blonde, thin, they called me the David Beckham of women’s football in the media. “Everyone knew that Al Fayed liked blonde women and girls,” says Gibbons. «They took me to his office and I don’t know if the door closed automatically or someone closed it, but I arrived and there was only him. Not his children. There was no one and I already thought it was very strange. Then he picked me up and tried to kiss me. With his arms he grabbed mine and I couldn’t push him. “It was a situation of control, of telling myself ‘I’m dominating you.'”
«He kept grabbing me and tried to pull me and kiss me on the mouth. I moved so he could only kiss me on the cheek. I was wearing the Fulham shirt and I instantly noticed the sweat on my back. It was very uncomfortable. “I froze,” adds Gibbons, who remembers that the businessman tried to get him to sit on his lap and offered to buy him things. «I felt lucky because I was able to leave without upsetting him and without having to experience something worse.».
Al Fayed’s insistence
After that first visit to Al Fayed’s offices, the former player continued receiving calls from the businessman and was summoned to their offices a couple more times.
Gibbons explains in the interview that she felt the need to tell her experience after seeing Gaute Haugenes, Fulham women’s coach in 2001, in the BBC documentary, explaining that they tried to protect the players because they knew what Al Fayed was like. “It wasn’t the coach when I had those meetings but I had to know that Al Fayed wanted something with me,” he lamented.
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