Former Republic of Ireland player Ronnie Gibbons has claimed she was sexually assaulted twice by former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed.
Ms Gibbons, who played for the Republic between 2000-2004, told that on two occasions she was allegedly assaulted by Al Fayed during visits to his luxury department store in central London.
The soccer star said both incidents happened in 2000 when she was 22, after she had signed with Fulham FC’s women’s team.
Ms Gibbons was born in south London but was eligible for the Republic as she had grandparents from Co Mayo and Co Galway.
She made the claims about Al-Fayed - who owned Fulham FC between 1997 and 2013 - in an interview with New York Times sports reporting site The Athletic.
The Met is investigating dozens of allegations relating to the Egyptian-born businessman, who died in August 2023.
Ms Gibbons said she was driven to Harrods ahead of the first incident by Fulham club staff before being left alone with Al-Fayed, who at the time was in his 70s.
She alleged he gave her chocolates and an envelope with £50 notes, and “pulled me in close and tried to kiss me on the mouth”.
“He had his arms holding my arms, like at my side, so I couldn’t push him away or anything like that. It was a real kind of control stance, like ‘I’m dominating you’,” she said.
“I was just like, ‘What do I do here?’ I just felt like a huge responsibility on my shoulders at that point because we’d just turned professional.”
Ms Gibbons said Al-Fayed “may have stuck his tongue on me” when attempting to forcefully kiss her again, before she left the store “just really physically feeling sick”.
She said the second assault happened when she was summoned to Harrods again that summer.
“This time he groped me. As he was saying goodbye, he was sort of grabbing me, trying to sort of hold on to me and kiss me,” she said.
“He was like, ‘You’re not scared are you? You don’t need to be scared, I’m not going to do anything like that, you’re very precious, you’re a very special girl’.”
A spokesperson for Fulham FC said the club “unequivocally condemn all forms of abuse”.
