French football club Montpellier has come forward to deny the recent allegations of racism levelled by former teammate and Aussie athlete Mary Fowler.
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In a statement, the club said it discovered “with astonishment” Fowler’s “serious” accusations, which she detailed in her just-released tell-all memoir Bloom.
“Some of them are particularly serious, and the shortcut that results from them — portraying the club as a racist entity — is unacceptable,” Montpellier said, per the ABC.
The response comes one day after Fowler’s account of the treatment she received during her time at the club made headlines, particularly the claims she made in a chapter titled “Not So Great Days”.
In those pages, the Matildas star — who played for Montpellier for three seasons starting in 2020 — reflected on being left out of the club’s presentation for departing players.
Fowler recalled how she and her teammate Ashleigh Weerden were not given flowers by the club as a farewell gift but instead received bananas by another player.
“Not receiving flowers was one thing, but as two of only six black girls in the squad, receiving bananas wasn’t something I could laugh off and forget about,” Fowler wrote.
But Montpellier had a different version of events in its statement, claiming “the truth leaves no room for interpretation”.
The club claimed Fowler’s timeline didn’t add up since the farewell presentation she mentioned was in 2022, before her contract’s expiry in 2023.
“At the end of the match, as had been customary for several seasons, two players whose contracts were expiring — and who were therefore wearing the club’s colours for the last time — were honoured with a bouquet of flowers,” Montpellier claimed.
“This was neither the case for Mary Fowler nor for the teammate mentioned in her book, both of whom were still under contract with the club until June 30, 2023.
“It would therefore have been rather inappropriate for the club to offer them a farewell gift,” it added.
The club also refuted Fowler’s account of the racist gift she received, saying it investigated the claims and found no evidence she received bananas from a teammate.
“If incidents of this nature had been reported and proven, the club would have taken all necessary measures as soon as they were brought to its attention,” Montpellier said.
According to the ABC, the football club is considering legal action, saying “racism is a serious issue that must not be exploited”. The club also reiterated its “daily commitment to fighting all forms of discrimination”.
Elsewhere in Bloom, Fowler detailed her regret in not handling the incident differently, and said the situation “made it hard for us to not notice we were being treated differently to other players” at Montpellier.
“I’ve tried to justify it in many different ways … But when I add in the many other times at the club when we were left feeling a similar way, it was hard to see it as merely a simple error,” she wrote.
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