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Transcript of damning phone conversation
Daily Mail Last updated at 00:00am on 02.08.04This is the damning transcript of telephone conversations between FA communications chief Colin Gibson and the News of the World a week after the scandal first broke.
Colin Gibson: There does seem to be something in this.
News of the World executive: Yeah.
Gibson: Well, the e-mails [confirming Faria Alam's affairs with Eriksson and Palios] exist.
NOTW: Yeah.
Gibson: The boss [Palios] himself says, 'Look, I had a drink and a meal with her and f*** all else happened, I didn't get involved in that.' So he's denied anything other than a social drink, in a brief, sort of flirtation over a bar.
NOTW: You've seen the e-mails.
Gibson: I know, I know. NOTW: And that doesn't have credibility?
Gibson: I know, but ... can we? (Sighs) This is very difficult.
NOTW: Look, we're not trying to hammer the guy.
Gibson: Let me tell you why: Tomorrow, he's taking his kids to his kid's birthday party and he's trying to ... well, he and his expartner, there's actually five girls, he and his ex-partner [inaudible] had agreed to begin a trial reconciliation. Now this is going to completely blow it out of the water obviously.
NOTW: But why, he wasn't with the ex-partner then, was he? Gibson: No, no, no, but I mean just the publicity around it, you know, what's going to happen tomorrow.
NOTW: Well what if we ...
Gibson: Can we do a deal? NOTW: What are you proposing?
Gibson: What I'm proposing is that I give you chapter and verse on her and Sven.
NOTW: Mmmm?
Gibson: And, and get her to do an interview to say she lied to everybody this week and that it was true.
NOTW: That's a pretty good deal.
Gibson: And the pay-off, obviously, is that we leave MP [Palios] out of it. I've got the details, I've got the places, I've got the phone calls. I've got everything.
NOTW: And she'll talk to us?
Gibson: We'll f***ing ... If she won't I will, on her behalf.
NOTW: It would have to be direct quotes.
Gibson: It would be direct quotes.
NOTW: The editor would probably go for that. I'll go straight in to see him and call you back.
Gibson: I'm trying, I'm trying to protect Mark Palios and his five girls. You know what it's like.
NOTW: I understand.
Gibson: A two-week fling with a secretary and you think f*** me, this is not a good idea - bing you're out of it and that's it. It's as simple as that. A couple of drinks and you know, a bit of a fumble, but certainly nothing to the degree that she's claiming to her friend who she's trying to impress. What I'm proposing is that I give you, we give you arguably the whole thing and we put her and you together and you get the quotes out of her.
NOTW: If we can talk to her then I think the editor would go for it.
Gibson: I've spoken to her already and she's just going to er, she ... I said I'd come back to her within an hour.
NOTW: All right, give me ten minutes and I'll call you back.
The conversation resumes: Gibson: Yeah, but the line on it will have to be, Mark did help the News of the World make sure that we got the Sven story. You got the Sven story right earlier in the year which everybody else got ...
NOTW: That's true.
Gibson: And what it would have to have in there would be a line that says there was no, you know, despite suggestions and I know there's been suggestions I've had affairs with senior employees at the FA but this is absolutely not true.
NOTW: OK.
Gibson: And you know that ... we'll have to make sure that ... that line is in there.
NOTW: Yeah, well a deal's a deal.
Gibson: Yep, let me go back to her, to her people. I'm going to make this happen, come straight back to me.
In the next call, Gibson details the extent of Eriksson's relationship with Miss Alam. In another he says: Gibson: Is there any deal we can do around more information about her and Sven and none about Palios at all?
And in a further call he insists the deal must stand: Gibson: The fact is that Faria ... Faria is so wounded by all this. He's keen, we're all keen to see the deal go through, that it does go through. What I don't want it to do is fall down at the very last minute.
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