The Football Association are examining claims by a former Fulham employee who says he is trying to alert the authorities to corruption in a bid to derail the £600million sale of Wembley.
On Thursday Martin Glenn and the Football Association board will present to the FA council having approved the sale of the national stadium to Fulham’s billionaire owner, Shahid Khan.
But Craig Kline, Fulham’s former assistant director of football, has made a number of explosive claims ahead of that meeting and has now urged FA investigators he met only this week to alert the FA council.
Last year Kline, who claims to still be close friends with Kahn’s son Tony having studied at the same university in Illinois, posted a series of allegations on social media in the wake of his acrimonious departure from the now Premier League club.
He accused the club of ‘tapping up’ and ‘racism’, only to then delete the tweets and then reaching some form of financial settlement with his former employers despite filing a series of formal grievances to senior members of the Fulham hierarchy. In a meeting with Kline in London on Tuesday Sportsmail was shown evidence of these grievances.
But Kline contacted the FA last week and met with investigators on Monday, also returned to Twitter on Monday to post further claims ahead of the proposed Wembley sale.
He said: ‘Dear FA Council (+relevant police, MPs, regulators, press etc). I have key evidence of systemic corruption relevant to the Wembley vote which I’d like to submit. Please request this info from me. #fraud #wembley #MrPringle #CC #JtL #threats #minors.’
In another post he then said: ‘My friend Tony and I built a paper trail and tried to report and do right for years, us both death threatened to not. So much fraud in football, FA where are you? So much child endangerment and exploitation. I have a lot of evidence authorities, please request.’
A statement from the FA issued this afternoon said: ‘We have recently been contacted by Craig Kline who has made a series of allegations about Fulham FC. We are currently in the process of reviewing these allegations.’
Kline says he has also contacted the English Football League. Sportsmail has asked the EFL for comment and also put a series of questions to Fulham.
Last November it was reported that police officers were called to Fulham’s training ground at the request of Kline following of series of clashes with senior staff members.
At the same time it was reported that the club was considering legal action against Kline for the series of tweets he posted.
In a statement the Metropolitan Police said: ‘Police were called at approximately 12:40hrs on Monday, 30 October to Motspur Park in New Malden following a report of non-recent threatening behaviour. There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.’
Today the FA made a presentation to the County FA CEOs and Chairs and FA Council about the potential sale of Wembley Stadium.