CHELSEA have sacked their commercial director amid claims of sexual harassment and X-rated tweets – just two week after appointing him.
The Blues confirmed Damian Willoughby’s dismissal after football finance agent Catalina Kim provided “evidence of inappropriate messages”.
The Telegraph say Kim produced texts showing that Willoughby asked if she was naked and introduced sex as a subject, whilst he also posted an alleged sexually-explicit video.
She also said he suggested he would arrange a meeting with Manchester City CEO Ferran Soriano if she agreed to be “naughty”.
Chelsea dismissed Willoughby after Kim alerted the club’s president of business Tom Glick about conduct dating back to before he was brought in as a senior executive earlier in September.
The Blues told the Telegraph: “Chelsea Football Club confirms that it has terminated Commercial Director Damian Willoughby’s employment with immediate effect.
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“Evidence of inappropriate messages sent by Mr Willoughby, prior to his appointment at Chelsea FC earlier this month, has recently been provided to and investigated by the Club.
“While they were sent prior to his employment at the Club, such behaviour runs absolutely counter to the workplace environment and corporate culture being established by the Club’s new ownership.“
Kim is chief executive of C&P Sports Group and has set up multi-million pound deals between European giants like champions City and Spurs.
The Telegraph say they have seen her text exchanges with Willoughby, showing she repeatedly rebuffed him and reminded him he is married.
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He first worked at Stamford Bridge between 2007 and 2010 but reportedly first met Kim in 2015 when he was involved with Man City.
Then, this summer, she was linked to bids to buy Chelsea whereas he was keen on supporting a rival consortium – before Todd Boehly won the takeover battle.
Glick informed her Willoughby was Chelsea’s new commercial director and the three of them met on September 1.
Afterwards Kim raised concerns with Glick – at first about his efforts to raise investment for a bid to buy Chelsea but then over his previous conduct.
It’s understood she had not previously spoken out about his conduct as she had hoped not to work with him again.
Kim earlier told The Telegraph: “I can confirm that I made a complaint to Tom Glick about the general behaviour of Damian Willoughby over two years, including his recent threatening phone call to me.
“I strongly believe this is not a work environment and corporate culture that any Premier League club would tolerate.”
Willoughby’s lawyers declined to comment, The Telegraph reported.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
