David Goodwillie’s victim tells SFA: Words are cheap and so is hypocrisy

The woman raped by David Goodwillie accused the Scottish Football Association of hypocrisy yesterday for backing a campaign to end male violence against women despite refusing to take action against the player for four years.

Denise Clair spoke out and said the SFA should be ashamed of its inaction as Goodwillie was allowed to resume his career in senior football after he and then-team-mate David Robertson were ruled rapists after a landmark civil action.

Her lawyers wrote to the SFA in 2018 after the ruling to ask if action would be taken against Goodwillie but were told that, after careful consideration, it had been decided that he had not brought the game into disrepute.

She said: “It was impossible to understand the decision then and even harder now. If raping someone does not bring the game into disrepute, what would?

“To read how the SFA is backing a campaign against violence against women and girls is laughable. The SFA had the chance four years ago to actually do something meaningful and they refused.

“Actions count for something. Words are cheap and hypocrisy is even cheaper than that.”

In 2017, days after his appeal against the civil ruling was rejected, Goodwillie was selected to play for Clyde and continued to turn out for the club despite never showing any remorse.

His transfer to Raith Rovers in January sparked an outcry led by best-selling novelist Val McDermid, a lifelong fan of the team, and the Fife club last week announced he would return to Clyde on loan.

However, within days the Cumbernauld team scrapped the move after their landlords, North Lanarkshire Council, banned Goodwillie from entering Broadwood Stadium, while Clyde’s women’s team broke away from the club in protest.

The SFA – which on Friday joined feminist charity Zero Tolerance Scotland and other football bodies in calling for an end to violence against women and girls, ahead of International Women’s Day on Tuesday – refused to discuss its failure to take action against Goodwillie.

Ms Clair said: “How can the SFA continue to insist Goodwillie has not brought the game into disrepute when North Lanarkshire Council has ruled he is not a fit and proper person to even set foot in their stadium?

“The SFA can continue to talk and talk about all the great things it does to encourage equality and girls and women but its inaction is worth a million words. It looks away when it should only be doing the right thing.

“It is not only Goodwillie that brings the game into disrepute.”

Ms Clair welcomed the council’s move to ban Goodwillie but said the authority and other public bodies had failed to show concern in the past. In 2018, a number of MSPs spoke to the local authority but the council made no representations to arms-length organisation North Lanarkshire Leisure, which then controlled the stadium and had a number of senior councillors on its board. The authority insists it only took charge of Broadwood Stadium last year.

Ms Clair said: “It’s nice to think attitudes have changed but David Goodwillie has been playing professional football since he was charged in 2011 and found to have raped me six years later without a word of concern from anyone in authority, not the government, not the SFA, not the council, not other clubs, no one.

“Those involved only seem to have grown a conscience since Val McDermid kicked up a stink. Yes, I’m glad everyone is now saying what should have been said all those years ago but have to ask why it took so long and wonder if anything has really changed.”

Goodwillie was charged with raping Ms Clair but the prosecution was suddenly dropped in 2011. She is now attempting to bring a private prosecution of the two men and has asked the Lord Advocate for an independent review of the case.

The Crown Office claims the decision to drop the case was correct, despite toxicology reports showing her blood-alcohol levels were in the highest band and potentially lethal; and witnesses saying she could hardly stand or speak, never mind consent to sex.

Yesterday, Scotland’s most celebrated women’s footballer, Rose Reilly, said those who had failed her should be held to account.

Reilly said: “Whoever got things wrong – whether it’s the SFA, Clyde, Raith Rovers – they should be held responsible for their actions and David Goodwillie needs to acknowledge what happened. His silence is deafening. What he did was horrific but you can repent for what you’ve done. The only way to go forward in life is to face up to your demons.

“There’s a fine line you can’t cross in life, never mind in football. He’s now dragging the game of football down with him.”