Williams reveals extent of cover-up

TOM WILLIAMS was offered a series of sweeteners by Harlequins in return for keeping quiet over the fake blood scandal that has shamed English rugby union, a disciplinary panel was told.

The three-man panel, which banned Harlequins former director of rugby, Dean Richards, for three years for fabricating the blood fraud during a match against Leinster in last season’s Heineken Cup, and then orchestrating a cover-up which left Williams as the fall guy, published its judgment yesterday and so damning are its contents that Harlequins are supremely fortunate that Twickenham has already decided not to take any further action against the club.

What started out as an amateur attempt to cover up a faked blood substitution turned into a such a concerted attempt by Quins, led by Richards, to conceal the truth, that even when Williams was banned for a year in July at a hearing set up to look into the affair, Stoop officials made concerted efforts to get the wing to continue to lie until Richards, realising he could no longer control events, resigned.

The scandal started when Williams, a replacement against Leinster, was given a blood capsule and told to simulate a mouth injury so Evans could return to the field. It was such a bungled attempt that the tournament organisers launched an inquiry and ended up charging Harlequins and Williams, even though the club did not bother to tell him he would be in the dock along with Richards and the physiotherapist, Steph Brennan, who were both left off before being found guilty on appeal.

When Williams received a year’s ban, he had a meeting with the Professional Rugby Players’ Association and took legal advice. He decided to abandon the pretence that he had suffered a blood injury, but the Quins chief executive, Mark Evans, and the club’s chairman, Charles Jillings, tried to persuade him to change his mind at separate meetings.

“I met Mark on July 31st in Cafe Nero in Twickenham along with Damian Hopley, the PRA chief executive,” said Williams in his evidence to the appeal. “Mark was friendly but outlined the consequences of my appealing on a full disclosure basis. He told me this route could involve the club being expelled from the Heineken Cup, losing sponsors and that Steph Brennan and Wendy Chapman (the club doctor) could be struck off for life and sue the club. He said it would be worse than relegation. On August 5th Damian Hopley and I met Charles Jillings, the club’s chairman, at the PRA offices; my solicitor, Owen Eastwood, joined us later.

“Charles started by apologising to me for the position I had been placed in. He then laid out a compensation offer to me. This consisted of payment of my salary while I was suspended, an assurance that I would be selected for the team on merit once my suspension ended, a two-year contract extension, a testimonial, a three-year employment opportunity with the club after I had retired from playing and an assurance that he would take a direct interest in my post-rugby career. Charles told me he thought I should appeal, but that it should be on a limited basis focusing on the sanction and not the findings of fact. I agreed to consider what he had said.”

Eastwood then told Williams the outcome of a meeting he had had that morning with Mark Evans who reacted to being told the player intended making a full disclosure appeal by saying it was a mistake that would hit the club hard financially to the extent that it would lose sponsorship, see its playing budget reduced by £2m (€2.3m), the bank seeking repayment of loans, redundancies and probable relegation.

“I understand that Mark said this would be my responsibility and that it would be extremely difficult for me at the club,” said Williams.

Williams said that by August 7th he felt he was under severe pressure from the club not to appeal on a full disclosure basis. “I began to waver,” Williams told the panel, who the following day instructed his solicitor to respond to the club’s offer and to propose what he felt was adequate compensation. He deemed adequate compensation to be an apology, an extended contract on improved terms and the paying off of his mortgage. Quins made Williams an alternative offer which he accepted: it included an apology, a new four-year contract and extra holidays, unconditional on Williams refraining from making a full disclosure appeal. The following day, Jillings rang Williams to say that Richards had resigned and that the club would support him in disclosing everything.

Harlequins said last night that Jillings and Evans would not be commenting on the judgment’s revelations. Hopley said that Williams’s version of events in the meetings with Evans and Jillings coincided with his own but that he did not believe Quins were trying to bribe the player.