What happened between Mark Sampson and Eni Aluko? Ex-England striker called out by football fans after accusing Joey Barton of abuse

Football fans called out Eni Aluko on X (Twitter) for accusing Mark Sampson years ago. The 6-year-old incident has been recalled on social media amidst her ongoing rife with former footballer Joey Barton.

Eni Aluko took to Instagram on January 17, 2024, stating how she suffered online abuse after Barton criticized her on X (Twitter). In her reel, Aluko also declared that she would be taking legal action against Barton’s remarks – especially his comparison of her and fellow ITV pundit, Lucy Ward, to the serial killers Fred and Rose West.

Following Aluko’s video statement, many football fans have taken to social media, likening the feud to what happened between Mark Sampson and Eni Aluko in 2016. Some accused Aluko of ruining the former coach's livelihood, while others called her video a "rodeo at playing the racism card."

Some netizens have criticized Aluko for always playing the victim, whether with Mark Sampson, Paddy Kenny, or Joey Barton.

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Eni Aluko’s bullying complaint against Mark Sampson resulted in the manager getting sacked

Eni Aluko at the Wolverhampton Wanderers v Crystal Palace - Premier League (Image by Getty Images/ Photo by Naomi Baker)

Eni Aluko made her first formal complaint against Mark Sampson in 2016. Aluko was a player in the England national team at the time, and Sampson was her team’s manager. In her complaint, Aluko had shared instances between Sampson and her that allegedly took place in 2014 and 2015, in which Sampson’s remarks had been reportedly racist.

According to The Guardian, Mark Sampson had first made a racist comment to Aluko in November 2014, right before England played against Germany in the World Cup. Sampson asked Aluko if anyone she knew was coming to watch the match, and she shared about her family coming in from Nigeria.

Sampson’s alleged racist response to that was,

“Nigeria? Make sure they don’t bring Ebola with them.”

In another instance, Sampson had allegedly asked a mixed-race player how many times she had been arrested. When these instances were reported to the Football Association (FA) in 2016, two separate internal investigations were held, and Sampson was cleared of any wrongdoing in them both.

Aluko was not satisfied with how the investigations ended and was set on taking things forward in 2017 when the Football Association allegedly paid £80,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement.

As soon as Aluko consented to share her side of the story in the Mark Sampson scandal, her interview with The Guardian led a whistle-blower outside the FA, urging Martin Glenn, FA’s chief executive, to revisit the allegation report against Sampson.

After a month of close examination of all the reports, it was also revealed that Sampson allegedly had inappropriate relationships with the female players at Bristol Academy, where he had been a coach before joining the FA.

Mark Sampson was sacked from the Football Association on grounds of his “inappropriate and unacceptable behavior” at the Bristol Academy. After his dismissal, Sampson told the Times how he regretted not handling the complaints from two players seriously.

“I believed strongly that the way the team worked, if I had said something that offended anyone, it would have been brought up at the time. I was wrong. Ultimately two players were offended by the language I used. For that I apologise to Drew and Eni unreservedly.”

Two years after his dismissal, Sampson was appointed the first-team coach of Stevenage FC in July 2019, where he worked until 2021. Per his LinkedIn profile, Sampson works at CoachBetter as a Technical Director in Zurich.