ENI ALUKO should be invited by the FA to help it set up proper grievance procedures.
That was the claim from sports minister Tracey Crouch as she appeared in front of the same committee of MPs which roasted FA chiefs last month over the Aluko fiasco.
An independent investigation found the Chelsea striker had been the victim of racially discriminatory comments by then England boss Mark Sampson – but only after the governing body had botched its own probe and the first outside inquiry also cleared Sampson.
Crouch said: “What we have to see now is proper reform so that they do show duty of care and have proper grievance procedures.
“In my view they should take Eni Aluko up on her offer to help with these reforms. I think she would be a great asset in driving cultural change in the FA.”
But Crouch refused to back calls from some MPs for chairman Greg Clarke and chief executive Martin Glenn to resign or be sacked, saying it was not her job and would be the start of a slippery slope towards the kind of state control of sport seen in China and Russia.
And although she said the Aluko affair had “tarnished” the success of the FA’s reforms in other areas, she added: “I think the FA has a lot to celebrate.”
Crouch added that the FA’s issues with whistleblowing and grievance procedures were shared not only by other sports, but also Parliament, and should be resolved in the most part by the governance code for all sports that came into force on October 31.
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But Damian Collins, chair of the DCMS Select Committee, wants his fellow Tory to establish an independent sports ombudsman to make sure proper procedures were followed and intervene when they are not.
Collins also believes there is a strong case for giving athletes, especially those receiving funding from UK Sport, the same employment rights as people working in other sectors.
Collins said: “I think an independent sports ombudsman is desperately needed. We’ve seen too many cases of sports bodies marking their own homework.
“Often athletes don’t have very many rights in the face of the governing body of the sport in which they participate – in many ways, fewer rights than an Uber driver.
“And that’s been at the heart of the problem.”
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