Hope Solo accuses Blatter of sexual assault

NEW YORK: US football star Hope Solo accused ex-FIFA President Sepp Blatter of touching her inappropriately during an awards ceremony five years ago, an allegation that the former head of international football’s governing body denied.

Solo, 36, told a Portuguese newspaper that Blatter touched her inappropriately in January 2013 during the Ballon D’or awards ceremony in Lisbon.

A spokeswoman for Solo on Saturday confirmed her comments.“I had Sepp Blatter grab my a**,” the former goalkeeper on the US national women’s team said in an audio interview with Expresso, posted on Saturday.

“It was at the Ballon D’or one year, right before I went on stage,” said Solo, who received FIFA’s women’s player of the year award in 2013. “It’s been normalised.”A spokesman for Blatter said in a phone interview on Saturday that Solo’s allegation was “absurd and ridiculous, and it is not true.”

Solo is the latest celebrity to go public with accusations of sexual misconduct by powerful men in sports and entertainment, including movie producer Harvey Weinstein, actor Kevin Spacey and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

The allegations have inspired an online campaign, tagged #MeToo, that has encouraged men and women in all walks of life to reveal their own experiences with sexual harassment.Solo last month posted a statement on her Instagram page that commended women for having courage to reveal their experiences with sexual misconduct.

“From inappropriate comments, unwanted advances and grabs of the a** to coaches and GMs and even press officers speaking about players ‘ti**’ and physical appearance, sexual harassment is rampant in the sports world,” Solo wrote online.“I always felt I’d ‘handled it’ and stood up for myself in those situations, but there were never any consequences for the perpetrators,” she added.