Official Club Statement

Looks like the club has dealt with this matter legally. Although, the confidentiality clause shouldn't have been part of the settlement agreement.

comment by Conte'nt (U20893)
posted 3 minutes ago
Looks like the club has dealt with this matter legally. Although, the confidentiality clause shouldn't have been part of the settlement agreement.
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Its a tough one ..

This line is important

"the Board understood it was a usual practice to include mutual confidentiality provisions as part of all settlement agreements and accordingly requested that one be included."

I guess at that time... the club thought this is the best way to close this particular situation.

i dont think the club had any intent to cover up or hide..

Maybe they included the confidetiality clause to protect the club image, although the incident happened in a diffrent regime.

yeah the only thing now is that it looks like an attempt to cover up...

what if they'd paid the guy off and then released a statement to the media that they have conducted an investigation etc and settled with the victim etc.. maybe that would have made into a big issue but it would have brought it out into the open.. maybe the victim also didnt want to be revealed..

have you seen the bbc news video clip, the reporter was reading out the chelsea statement and a security guard asked her to move, live on air, ffs why do we do this to ourselves

Yep they seemed to be in agreement regarding the confindetially clause being inserted at the time. The fact the club took the initiative to disclose it, should be applauded

It looks to me like it's one of those situations that just doesn't look good whichever way we try to dress it up. As a Club we always seem to end up on the naughty step, even without the previous Manager's antics that used to plague us. As a Club we do seem to love a PR own goal.

The focus is on us at the moment, sadly this runs deeper and wider and as more offences come to light and other clubs are dragged in the focus will be on others but the back of the vitriol will be broken on us.

This has nothing to do with PR or image, the clause was there by advice of standard practice.

Lets face it , its a very messy subject , the club are not stupid, but what ever way it goes it will always reflect poorly.

The club took legal advise and acted upon it, recognizing the claim, which at the time was more than the FA and police were prepared to do.