Graham Rix and Gwyn Williams accused of racism, bullying by 3 '90s Chelsea youth players

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Three former youth-team footballers at Chelsea have launched legal claims against the club after allegations that black players were subjected to horrific racism by their coaches, including physical attacks and one instance when Graham Rix allegedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of one of the young prospects.

Rix, then the youth-team coach, is named along with Gwyn Williams, a prominent figure at Stamford Bridge for more than 25 years, in a case that contains such serious allegations Chelsea felt compelled to notify the Football Association and the police were brought in. The police decided after a seven-month investigation there was insufficient evidence to take any action but Chelsea have launched their own inquiry and the FA’s safeguarding team have so far interviewed two of the players. Chelsea have also offered in-house counselling to at least one of the players.

Rix and Williams declined to comment to the Guardian but later issued a statement through their solicitor denying the allegations. Chelsea have released a statement about a civil claim that was instigated in a letter to the club last February and, until now, has never been reported. “We take allegations of this nature extremely seriously,” Chelsea’s statement said. “We are absolutely determined to do the right thing, to fully support those affected, assist the authorities and support their investigations.”

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In one incident, Chelsea played a youth-team fixture in Spain and Rix is said to have humiliated one of the black outfield players by substituting him with the reserve goalkeeper. As the player was showering afterwards, it is alleged Rix shouted that “if his heart was as big as his cock, he would be a great player that ran more”. According to the evidence seen by Chelsea and the FA, Rix followed it up by saying the player should have been “the only person in the whole stadium to be able to enjoy the 40-degree heat” on the basis that “blacks were always winning the long-distance Olympic events in the heat, if they weren’t chucking spears”.

Other allegations include that Rix or Williams called him a “darkie”, a “nignog”, a “black bastard”, a “wog”, “midnight”, “jigaboo” and various other insults. The player also alleges he was told by Williams to “frick off back to Africa” and “sell drugs or rob old grannies”. Williams is not accused of any physical assaults but would allegedly punish the player by telling him to “go and clean my office, Richard Pryor – shine my shoes like a good wog” or “pick up your lip, it’s dragging on the floor”.

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Williams, 68, joined Chelsea in 1979 and was so close to Ken Bates he later followed him to Leeds United as technical director. His period at Chelsea also included a spell as assistant manager to Claudio Ranieri and he was involved in the scouting department for José Mourinho before leaving the club in 2006. Williams, who is credited with discovering John Terry, has been accused in the past of making homophobic comments to Graeme Le Saux, the former Chelsea defender. “He would wander up to me before training and say: ‘Come on, poof, get your boots on,’” Le Saux wrote in his 2007 autobiography. Williams was dismissed by Leeds for gross misconduct in 2013 after emailing pornographic images of women to a number of colleagues, including a female receptionist.

Rix, 60, also has a chequered past after admitting, in March 1999, two charges of unlawful sex with a 15-year-old girl and indecent assault and being sentenced to 12 months in prison – serving six of them – as well as being put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. He was reinstated by Chelsea immediately after his release from Wandsworth prison and was the first-team coach when Vialli’s team won the FA Cup in 2000. Rix had previously been the assistant manager to Gullit and had a brief spell as the caretaker manager after Vialli’s departure. After that, he managed Portsmouth, Oxford United and Hearts, as well as coaching at the Glenn Hoddle Academy in Spain and having a brief spell as manager of a club in Trinidad. His last managerial job in England was at AFC Portchester of the Wessex League Premier Division but he left the club last August.

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The allegations from the player are also that Williams seemed to target him by “flicking my scrotum, flicking my penis, patting my bum” when he was still a minor. There is no suggestion Williams was getting sexual gratification but it was deemed serious enough to form part of the questioning when David Gregson, the FA’s safeguarding team leader, and Stefania Sacco, the safeguarding investigation manager, interviewed the player at Wembley on 23 October. Williams has been informed by the Guardian of the allegation.

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According to that player’s account, seen by the Guardian, the racist abuse at Chelsea started after joining the club on schoolboy terms. “Even at 12, 13, the vernacular he [Williams] was using was: ‘You little black bastard, you coon, you little wog, how are you doing?’ I was a minor, I’d never heard those words being said to someone [in football]. He addressed me like that every time he saw me. He’d walk in [the dressing room] and go: ‘Hey, look at the fricking blackies here then. fricking rubber lips. Look at their fricking big noses. You black bastard. Been fricking robbing cars, have you?’ Let me tell you something – that is the most demoralising feeling you could ever have.”

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The same player is said to have decided to stand up to Rix when, according to the evidence, the coach asked him whether he had “tried to frick any of our white girls” at the weekend. In the ensuing argument, Rix allegedly threw a cup of coffee in his face. “It burned my face,” the player says. “I went to grab him. I wanted to kill this guy. Then I had to think … black boy, six foot whatever, hits a white coach – he’s out of football. So I had to hold myself in and I went in to put water on my face because it was burning.”

In a follow-up legal letter to Chelsea, another alleged incident refers to the teenager asking Rix to stop making his sister feel uncomfortable by making what were, in the player’s view, suggestive remarks. Rix allegedly went red with anger and replied: “I will do whatever I want and if I fancy a bit of black I guarantee her black arse will get it,” and then punched him in the scrotum. “Our client fell to the floor in excruciating pain and Rix walked off laughing while looking over his shoulder.”

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