Report: 4 more players to take legal action against Chelsea over racism

Warning: Story contains coarse language

Chelsea is reportedly the subject of further legal action related to allegations of racism.

According to the Guardian's Martha Kelner, four former youth-team players are set to take legal action against Chelsea, claiming they were subjected to racial abuse by Graham Rix and Gwyn Williams, who both deny the allegations. One of the former youth-team footballers was apparently so scarred by the taunting he received during his time with the Blues that he felt unable to eat a banana in public at his first non-football job.

Kelner's report was published 10 days after the Guardian's Daniel Taylor wrote an exclusive in which Rix and Williams were accused of racism and bullying at Chelsea. Three former youth-team footballers launched legal claims against the Blues after allegations that black players were subjected to horrific racism by their coaches, including one instance where Rix threw hot coffee in a young prospect's face.

The four former youth-team footballers reportedly prefer to remain anonymous, are black, and decided to come forward after reading claims in Taylor's report. They apparently assert that the abuse was relentless and that no attempt was made to conceal the alleged racism in the academy, while suspecting that the language was tempered around senior players.

Rix is a former youth-team coach and caretaker manager at Chelsea. Williams worked for the Blues for more than a quarter-century. Both were key members of the club's backroom staff during the 1990s.

"I got scouted by Gwyn Williams for Chelsea," one former player said. "It wasn't immediately apparent because when he scouted me he knew I was being looked at by a couple of other clubs and he was the nicest person in the world. I grew up as one of five in Hounslow and had never experienced racism before. But when I started training at Chelsea that's when I started to hear the words he would use all the time: nig nog, black bastard, coon.

"We got all sort of abuse in the showers. I remember at the old Stamford Bridge we used to get it all in the changing rooms. You would hear: 'Look at his big black cock, donkey dick.' There was a group of apprentices who were two or three years older than me who got it really bad."

The former youth-team footballer who felt unable to eat a banana said, "At the time you don't say anything because they have your dreams in their hands and you don't want to do anything to affect that. But it has long-lasting effects.

"When I got my first job outside football I was afraid to eat a banana in the office because we used to eat fruit at half-time or after a game, pick up a banana, you can imagine what it was like in the changing room as a 12-, 13-, 14-year-old. That sticks with you. I remember walking into this office as a young black kid and thinking: 'I can't sit here and eat a banana because somebody's going to call me an effing nigger or a monkey.' It wasn't like that at all but that's how it felt for the first few years."

A spokesman for Chelsea declared, "We take allegations of this nature extremely seriously. We are absolutely determined to do the right thing, to assist the authorities and any investigations and to fully support those affected which would include counselling for any former player that may need it."

It's not the first time that Rix and Williams are facing legal problems.

In March 1999, Rix admitted to two charges of unlawful sex with a 15-year-old girl and indecent assault. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison and served six months, and was also put on the sex offenders' register for 10 years. Despite the admission, Chelsea reinstated him after his release, and he was appointed as caretaker manager in 2000.

Williams was accused of directing homophobic comments towards Graeme Le Saux, who, in his autobiography, wrote: "He would wander up to me before training and say: 'Come on, poof, get your boots on.'" He was dismissed by Leeds United for gross misconduct in 2013, which was the result of emailing pornographic images of women to colleagues.