Footballer Didier Drogba has said today he will sue the Daily Mail over a front-page article alleging wrongdoing at his charity, after a Charity Commission inquiry found his charity had governance failings but was not fraudulent or corrupt.
The Commission opened an operational compliance case – a less serious form of investigation – into Drogba’s charity in April, following front-page allegations in the Daily Mail that it misled donors and spent just 1 per cent of its income on charitable activities.
The regulator said in its case report that it had found “failures of governance” including a lack of adequate records, and that the charity was in breach of its governing documents because it did not have enough trustees.
It said the charity may have misled donors over the links between itself and another charity set up by Drogba in his homeland, the Ivory Coast.
It also found that “financial records provided by the bank did not support the level of charitable activity claimed to have been undertaken by the charity in its accounts and published material”.
And it found that trustees were breaching their fiduciary duties by not properly investing money held by the charity.
No evidence of wrongdoing
But it said it did not find evidence of serious wrongdoing.
“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,” the regulator said in its report. “We are also able to confirm that we found no evidence of fraud or corruption on behalf of the charity.
“We have issued the charity with an action plan to ensure that the outstanding concerns, particularly with regard to transparency to donors and the public, are addressed by the charity’s trustees.”
Didier Drogba said in a statement today: "The Charity Commission has today confirmed after a seven-month investigation that no funds have been misapplied by my foundation, and that there has been no financial wrongdoing, no fraud and no corruption.
"I am pleased that this supports what we always said from the start which is that the claims made by the Daily Mail back in April were entirely false. I have instructed my lawyers to seek a full apology and damages to be paid to my Foundation from the Daily Mail."
A Daily Mail spokesman said: "The Charity Commission report does not exonerate the Didier Drogba Foundation.
"On the contrary, it confirms the allegations we made: that the charity raised £1.7million 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 per cent 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 does state that it found no evidence of fraud or corruption at the Didier Drogba Foundation. However, the Daily Mail never accused the charity of fraud or corruption."
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