Chloe Kelly puts character assassination charge on Man City as winger loaned to Arsenal for rest of the season.
Chloe Kelly has accused Manchester City of attempting to “assassinate her character”, as she leaves to join Arsenal on loan for the remainder of the season.
Kelly claimed on social media late Thursday that City had been “planting negative stories” about her in the media. Kelly’s move was revealed by the two WSL teams at 11 p.m. GMT on Thursday, the last day of the transfer market. The Guardian has reached out to City for a reaction.
Kelly, who had made a longer social media message on Wednesday night accusing the club of controlling who she could and could not join, expressed her disappointment at City for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
On Thursday, the 27-year-old wrote: “So disappointed to find out tonight that people at the club are briefing journalists against me if I am to sign at a club before the window shuts. They’ve called reporters to assassinate my character and tried to plant negative stories about me in the football media.”
“To those responsible, I am disappointed in this. As I said in my previous statement, I just want to find happiness again.”
City’s head coach, Gareth Taylor, was asked about the comments before Sunday’s home WSL game against Arsenal, for which Kelly will be ineligible. “I’d rather not go into specifics,” he said. “What I would say is, it’s been really disappointing [for it] to come to this, and the ending it transpired to.
“I’ve always tried to represent the club in the right way, really dignified in the good moments, the difficult moments, and I certainly work for a club that has real integrity. It’s really disappointing. It’s been a challenging couple of days, for many people, not just for myself, but obviously a lot of people here at the club as well.
“And we never like to hear that a player has not had a good experience of being at the club. And I’m sure that’s not the case for the whole period she’s been at the club. Maybe this more recent period, of not playing, but we certainly try to support every single player that we work with. But we’re in a selection-based business, where difficult decisions have to be made for the betterment of the team, and sometimes people and players can fall on the sharp end of that. [But] Arsenal is a rival and they made the best offer, so we’ve certainly not stood in the way of a player being able to go and make the move they want to make.”