The Daily Record has criticised a Daily Mail investigation into a charity launched by the footballer Didier Drogba.
In a lengthy online article about Drogba’s “battle to repair damage done by allegations of scandal�, the Record’s writer argues that the Mail did not properly reflect the fact that the player was exonerated by a charity commission inquiry.
The Mail, however, stands by its interpretation of the commission’s findings, contending that its story was vindicated by the inquiry.
This saga began in April last year when the Mail ran a three-page report, The luvvies, football hero Drogba’s charity and £1.7m that’s never reached sick Africans it was meant for.
It alleged that less than 1% of the £1.7m raised by the Didier Drogba Foundation had gone to good causes. He set up the UK charity in 2009 when playing for Chelsea.
He hoped to use the money to build a health clinic in Abidjan, the capital of his home country, the Ivory Coast, and to fund its staffing and the purchase of medical equipment.
But citing accounts filed to the charity commssion, the Mail claimed that “only £14,115 of the money raised in the UK over five years has been spent on good causes.�
Instead, “the majority of donations� had been used to fund “swish events for celebrity supporters, or left untouched in bank accounts.�
It emerged that there were two foundations, one set up in the UK and a separate one based in the Ivory Coast. The Mail’s story concerned only the former.
The charity commission’s inquiry into the newspaper’s allegations was published in December. The Mail’s report on its findings was headlined “Charity chiefs slam Didier Drogba’s foundation after it was exposed by the Mail for spending £439,000 on parties rather than on good causes.�
It quoted the report as stating: “Funds had been raised at a number of events in the UK for a hospital project in the Ivory Coast. But the charity had not yet spent any of the funds on charitable activity.
“Donors will have expected their donations to have been used for charitable purposes, not accumulated in a bank account.�
But two reports of the commission’s inquiry saw it differently. A report by the news agency AFP - also carried on the Mail’s website - carried a statement by the commissioners that the Mail did not. It said:
“We have been able to satisfy our most serious concerns in relation to the charity by confirming that funds have not been misapplied and that all funds raised in the English charity’s name have been held by the English charity
“We are also able to confirm that we found no evidence of fraud or corruption on behalf of the charity.�
A BBC report, headlined “Didier Drogba charity cleared of fraud but may have ‘misled’ donors�, also reflected the commission’s nuanced view.
But the article published on the website of the Record, the Glasgow-based newspaper owned by Trinity Mirror, was unimpressed with the tenor of the Mail’s investigation.
It claimed that the Mail had been informed prior to publication that funds raised in the UK had not been passed on to the Ivory Coast because of political unrest.
It further claimed that the foundation’s lawyers had provided the Mail with “over 60 pages of documents� including bank statements demonstrating evidence of the payment of Drogba’s personal commercial income into the charity.
“For the past 10 years,� said the Record, Drogba “has donated to charity every penny of commercial income his storied sporting career has brought his way.�
Its writer argues that “there is a significant difference between the commission’s choice of the words ‘donors may have been misled’ by the foundation and the Mail’s reporting of those words as a definitive statement that the foundation had in fact ‘misled donors.’�
It further states: “Oddly, and despite the Mail’s extensive efforts to have those donors talk to them on record, the newspaper was unable to provide its readers with quotes from even a single Drogba foundation donor complaining of how she or he had been ‘misled’�.
It concludes: “The real story is that Drogba and his foundation have been exonerated of financial wrongdoing.�
A spokesman for the Mail said the charity commission report “did not exonerate the Didier Drogba foundation. On the contrary, it confirmed the allegations we made: that the charity raised £1.7m in the UK but almost all of those funds either went to pay for fundraising balls or sat in UK accounts; that less than 1% of this money was spent on charitable activity; that the charity’s accounts were misleading in recording the cost of the fundraising balls as charitable activity; that the charity misled donors into thinking that their money was going to beneficiaries in Africa; that the charity did not have appropriate trustees as they lived abroad and none were independent.
“The report did state that it found no evidence of fraud or corruption... However, the Daily Mail never accused the charity of fraud or corruption. We stand by our story.�
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