After refusing flatly to address the local media in Pretoria on the indecent assault claims he is facing, England’s Manchester United club manager Sir Alex Ferguson on Saturday opened up to the British media and rejected the allegations.
Ferguson, in South Africa on football business, has been accused of touching the leg of a 21-year-old computer technician after she agreed to his request for a lift to his Cape Town hotel following a night at a trendy jazz club on Friday.
He was in the city to evaluate a link between Manchester United and the Old Mutual Cape Town Football Academy. In a statement released through Manchester United to the British media, Ferguson said the allegations were ”untrue and without foundation”.
His lawyers had informed him of the complaint and possible investigations which both police and the director of public prosecutions were working on to make a decision.
”I would like to make it clear that any allegations of improper conduct, let alone sexual assault, on my part are untrue and entirely without foundation,” he said.
According to the Old Trafford boss, he, his wife Cathy, a member of his club’s coaching staff and SA Football Association officials on Friday night attended a function at the Cape Town Waterfront held on behalf of his club before the entire group went on to a nearby jazz club owned by a member of the party.
”At the end of the evening arrangements were made for lifts back to the hotel, at which time a young lady who had been talking to myself and members of our party suggested that she could drop me back at my hotel since it was on her way home.
”The claim that it was my suggestion that I travel with her or that I forced myself into her car is untrue.”
According to Ferguson, a member of the group, Alex Abercrombie, an attorney and former acting judge, was with him as he got into the woman’s car and ”has borne witness to this in his statement to the police”.
”In retrospect, clearly it would have been better if I had travelled back with members of the party who were already known to me, but I had no reason to expect that it would lead to her and her boyfriend making false claims to the police and then selling their story to British newspapers,” Ferguson said.
He said there was ”no story to tell beyond” the fact that she gave him a lift back to his hotel, which was only ten minutes away.
Ferguson said the saga had obviously been distressing for his family, which had been completely supportive.
Meanwhile, by Saturday night police had not yet presented the docket to Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka to decide whether any prosecution could take place.
Public Prosecutions’ representative Sipho Ngwema said he expected the docket to be handed in on Sunday. Police
Ferguson and his entourage were scheduled to leave the country on Sunday evening. – Sapa