Dutch football icon quits over ‘inappropriate’ messages to female staff
Ajax director of football Marc Overmars has stepped down from his role amid
accusations that he sent numerous inappropriate messages to female co-workers
Former Arsenal and Barcelona winger Marc Overmars has stepped down from his position at Dutch side Ajax after the club accused him of conducting a prolonged campaign of sending inappropriate messages to female members of staff.
Overmars, who won 87 caps for the Netherlands during a playing career which spanned between 1990 and 2009, opted to step down from his role after discussions with the club's hierarchy and chief executive Edwin van der Sar.
“I am ashamed,” Overmars said in a statement published on the club's website. “Last week I was confronted with reports about my behavior and how this has come across to others. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I was crossing the line with this, but that was made clear to me in recent days. I suddenly felt enormous pressure. I apologize.
“Certainly for someone in my position, this behaviour is unacceptable. I now see that too. But it is too late. I see no other option but to leave Ajax. This also has a major impact on my private situation. That is why I ask everyone to leave me and my family alone.”
Overmars has been in charge of football affairs at Ajax for almost a decade and had recently signed a new contract which was intended to take his role with the club up to the 2025/26 season.
Speaking of the incident which has proved to be a seismic shock within Dutch football, Ajax supervisory board chairman Leen Meijaard said that the club's first thoughts are with the women who had been caught up in the situation.
“This is a dramatic situation for everyone who is involved in any way. It is devastating for the women who have had to deal with the behavior,” said Meijaard. “When we heard news of this, we immediately acted, carefully deliberating and weighing what was the best thing to do - all in consultation with CEO Edwin van der Sar and assisted by an external expert.
“Marc is probably the best football director that Ajax has had. We upgraded and extended his contract for a reason. But unfortunately, he has really gone over the line, so continuing as director was not an option, as he recognized himself. It is extremely painful for everyone. I want to express the wish that everyone involved is given the peace and privacy to process this.”
Overmars' reign at the Dutch giants saw them steadily increase profits and claim four league titles, as well as seeing success in the Champions League - including reaching the semi-finals in 2019.
His playing career saw him win three league titles with the Dutch side as well as a single Champions League before a high profile transfer to the Premier League with Arsenal at whom he won a league and cup double in 1998.
Nike drops Man Utd star after rape allegations
Mason Greenwood has been dropped by his sponsor Nike following the range
of sexual assault allegations facing the 20-year-old
© Mateus Slodkowski / DeFodi Images via Getty Images
Manchester United's Mason Greenwood has been ditched by his athletic apparel sponsor Nike after the 20-year-old homegrown player was arrested on suspicion of rape, sexual assault and threats to kill.
Last week a number of allegations against Greenwood appeared on social media which detailed a supposed litany of abuse against a female partner, with some photographs showing the woman bleeding from the mouth as well as others which appeared to show heavy bruising on her body.
An audio clip was also released online which detailed a back-and-forth exchange between the woman and a man referred to as 'Mason'.
The player was subsequently arrested and held in police custody for several days before being released on bail last Wednesday.
Manchester United have stopped short of formally suspending Greenwood but announced in a statement that he would no longer play for, or train with, the team for an indefinite period.
That sounds like a suspension to me.
His sponsor Nike announced in the hours after the allegations emerged that they were reviewing their partnership with Greenwood but confirmed on Monday that he has now been formally dropped by the athletic brand.
"Mason Greenwood is no longer a Nike athlete," the company announced via a statement to The Athletic.
Nike counts the likes of Greenwood's Manchester United teammate Cristiano Ronaldo, NBA star LeBron James and Australian Open winner Rafael Nadal among its list of sponsored athletes.
Greenwood's image has also been removed from several popular football video games, with FIFA, PES and eFootball stating that he would not be included in further updates.
Manchester United have largely refused to comment other than to confirm that Greenwood will not be participating in team affairs moving forward, and that they denounce all forms of violence.
Greenwood, meanwhile, has not yet commented on the allegations or his arrest.
There is only revulsion in my world
Reverence and revulsion: The problematic case of Roman Polanski
He’s won an Oscar, Baftas, Cannes Palme d’Or, Golden Globe, Venice Golden Lion, Berlin Golden Bear, a string of French César Awards and all the accolades the film industry can bestow on an individual. But, to many people, the movie director Roman Polanski will always be considered, first and foremost, a child molester who escaped the punishment he deserved following his notorious sex trial in California.
Ever since he made the decision to board a plane for Europe rather than face another day in court at the whim of an erratic and fame-obsessed judge, Polanski has divided opinion across the world.
Now, with work due to start on his latest film ‘The Palace’ next month, before a scheduled release later this year, the controversy that smoulders around the director will reignite in a blaze of publicity. Maybe great news for a movie launch, but not necessarily so for all those involved in his unsavoury story.
In his birthplace of Europe – he was born in France, and raised in Poland – Polanski was hailed for many years as a true auteur, a possessor of a singular directorial style, a genius. In the US, where he had built a stellar career, he was considered something of a tragic figure after his beautiful wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in the home they shared along with four friends by the Manson Family on a night of slaughter in August 1969. Polanski, unsurprisingly, had been devastated.
These days, the public perception of Polanski is far more complicated. Already a controversial character given his flight from US justice, once the #MeToo movement caught up with the controversial director in 2017, his reputation took an even greater hit. A steady stream of allegations of sexual misconduct emerged. California artist Marianne Barnard alleged that Polanski sexually assaulted her when she was just 10 years old. German actress Renate Langer reported to the Swiss police that Polanski raped her twice when she was a child model in 1972. Former American actor Mallory Millett said Polanski tried to rape her in 1970, and a woman identified only as Robin M. accused Polanski of raping her when she was 16 years old.
It was all too much, and the cumulative effect was that the director was expelled from the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018. He appealed the decision but two years later it was confirmed and, just three months after that, in November 2020, the French film academy, César, also expelled him, following protests over the nomination of his film ‘An Officer and a Spy’ for a string of awards.
But the case that led to Polanski’s 44 years in self-imposed exile from Hollywood was that of Samantha Jane Gailey, now Geimer. In 1977 Polanski was charged by Los Angeles police with six criminal offences against her, including sodomy, sex with a minor and rape by use of drugs.
The victim has since repeatedly declared she has forgiven the director.
She lives quietly with her family on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and nowadays shuns the spotlight that has followed her ever since she became an unwilling participant in a media circus. But the mum-of-three must know that when Polanski’s latest film hits the festival circuit en route to the cinema, the phone will start ringing non-stop and journalists will suddenly appear on her doorstep insisting she relive the nightmare of her teenage years.
Not that she appears traumatised at all. In 2013, she wrote a startlingly frank and honest autobiography, ‘The Girl’, explicity recounting her experience, which makes it clear that her rape by Polanski did not define her later life and all she wishes is for the media to let her move on from the whole episode.
Once Polanski fled America, Geimer admitted to a sense of relief. But she also reveals how she dabbled in drugs and acted out during her early years. In her telling, it seems that behaviour had more to do with her being shuttled east and west across the country to spend school and holiday time with her divorced parents, and taking advantage of the relaxed style of parenting that flourished in the 1970s.
Drugs, alcohol and casual sex went mainstream after the 1960s, particularly in California, and led to youngsters like Samantha Jane Gailey, whose mum and stepdad made a living on the fringes of the entertainment industry, having access to all three. Now ‘Sam’ Geimer, she recalls that, as a young teen, she was once offered a glass of wine by the actress Jacqueline Bisset – she had a small role in Polanski’s ‘Cul-de-Sac’ – who was pouring one herself.
In the current environment, many would gasp at an adult encouraging a youngster to drink alcohol, but for those who were raised at that time – myself included – it would be a familiar experience.
That incident was the same night as the attack by Polanski, who had stopped off to visit Bisset before taking Geimer to the empty home of his friend Jack Nicholson, where he raped her. In the ensuing years, however, the talk of alcohol, combined with the idea of a 13-year-old girl alone in a strange home with a 43-year-old man – who had already been caught snapping topless photos of his latest ingénue – led to the creation of a narrative that Samantha was a wild teen. It was cruelly claimed she had dreams of stardom, and had been pimped out to the director by her mother in an attempt to curry favour with a powerful Hollywood figure.
Geimer dismisses the idea as out of hand. At the time of the rape – March 10, 1977 – her sister was going out with a friend of the famous director. When her mother met Polanski at a party, he suggested her younger daughter might be ideal for a photo shoot in French Vogue he’d been commissioned to do. The magazine has since denied any such agreement existed.
But it sounded promising. In 2013, Geimer told the LA Times, “We thought, ‘Man, I’m gonna be famous now. We’ll get me in Vogue Paris and then maybe I’ll get a good part.’ One step and you’re on your way. That’s what we thought it was, a chance, my big shot.”
The man she dubbed her ‘ticket to stardom’ subsequently turned up to collect her from home for the shoot. Geimer had enlisted her girl pal, Terri, as chaperone, but when Polanski told her they wouldn’t return until late, her friend cried off and rode home instead on her bicycle, leaving the teenager alone with him.
The photo shoot at Nicholson’s home went as planned for the director, as he plied the youngster with champagne and gave her part of a ‘disco biscuit’ – 70s slang for a Quaalude, a powerful prescription sedative and hypnotic pill popular at the time. Polanski and his prey ended up in Nicholson’s hot tub, but she feigned an asthma attack and fled to a bedroom where her attacker followed her and engaged in oral, vaginal and anal intercourse.
Gailey later told a grand jury that she repeatedly asked to go home, but Polanski persisted. She said she felt dizzy, unwell and claustrophobic, much like Carol Ledoux, the spaced-out, rape-obsessed character played by Catherine Deneuve who turns murderous in Polanski’s critically acclaimed first English-language feature film, ‘Repulsion’.
In ‘The Girl’, Geimer writes, “I made the decision to just let him do it, how bad can it be, it’s just sex. He doesn’t want to hurt me. He just wants to do it. And that will be that. It’s not like I am a real person to him, or for that matter that he is real to me. We are both playing our parts.”
When the ordeal was over, disturbed by the homecoming of Nicholson’s then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston, Geimer dressed, bundled her clothes and fled to Polanski’s car. She said he drove her home before uttering those dreadful words, “Don’t tell your mother. This will just be our secret.” But that’s not how it went. Still high from the champagne and drugs she’d consumed, Geimer told her boyfriend and family everything immediately, and they called the police. That changed her life forever.
Geimer later wrote, in the same self-deprecating style she uses throughout ‘The Girl,’ “I never would have been so honest if I hadn’t been so high. How I’ve wished, over the years, I’d never told anyone about that poke in the butt.”
What went on that night is undisputed. No one has ever questioned the young victim’s harrowing grand-jury testimony and Polanski has since admitted his crime. He’s also made off-colour references to it in the past and has made no secret of his desire for young – very young – girls. In 1978, for example, he began a relationship with 16-year-old Nastassja Kinski. He was 45. And, in 1979, he told British author Martin Amis, “Judges want to f*** young girls. Juries want to f*** young girls – everyone wants to f*** young girls!”
On that March night in 1977, however, the name Roman Polanski caught the attention of the LAPD and the feeding frenzy began. He was charged with statutory rape, as his victim was underage at the time, along with five other criminal charges and the wheels of justice began to turn… slowly.
There is much more on this sickening story here on RT.
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