Williams, having supposedly introduced shame on Harlequins by independently concocting the blood capsule plan, sought recommendation from the Rugby Gamers’ Affiliation.
They urged him to attraction, to blow the whistle on the entire plot.
However the membership had different concepts. Williams was provided a brand new two-year deal, three years of assured employment on the membership as soon as he had retired and a promise to assist him construct a profession exterior of rugby.
He simply needed to maintain again on the actual story. He needed to be a team-mate as soon as extra. He needed to defend the membership that meant a lot to all of them.
The total extent of the plot, the complicity of the membership’s medical employees and coaches, could not come out.
“They mentioned to me ‘do you perceive the influence of this choice you are about to make? For those who come ahead and present this, Harlequins might be kicked out of Europe, your mates’ taking part in alternatives for his or her nations might be diminished, Steph and Wendy might be struck off, we’ll lose sponsors we’ll lose cash’,” Williams remembers.
“Enjoying rugby was all I wished to do and all I felt that I may do.
“So I used to be caught between coming ahead and telling the reality and falling on my sword. And I did not know what to do.”
“I might have taken the rap,” Ugo Monye, Williams’ team-mate on the time, tells Bloodgate. “With the deal that was supposedly being provided, 100%.”
The stress was excessive.
Harlequins have been determined to include a poisonous scandal. Banned and branded a cheat, Williams wished to inform the reality, clarify his actions and rescue his rugby desires.
At one level, he requested for extra money in change for his silence; £390,000 to repay his mortgage and a four-year contract. Quins refused.
In a press release from the time Quins chairman Charles Jillings described Williams’ calls for as “exorbitant” and “surprising”. He insisted that “in no way was the monetary proposal a reward for Tom’s silence.”
“I might sunk to all-time low,” says Williams. “It was a catastrophic interval from a private standpoint.”
And on a regular basis, the clock was ticking.
Williams had one month to attraction in opposition to his ban, to go public and get his profession again on monitor.
Two days earlier than the window to attraction shut, an e mail landed in Williams inbox.
He wasn’t the one one contemplating an attraction. The European Cup organisers too have been sad that he was the one individual discovered responsible. They knew there should be extra to the case.
The possibilities of one younger participant arising with such a scheme on his personal and carrying it out in secret within the tight and tightly-controlled surroundings of an expert membership have been distant.
They wrote to inform Williams they have been to attraction in opposition to Richards, Brennan and Chapman being cleared. They might name him as a witness, cross-examine him and, if he did not comply, stage a second misconduct cost at him.
“His face actually simply went white,” remembers Alex, Williams’ girlfriend on the time, now spouse.
A closing summit assembly with the Harlequins hierarchy was known as.
Tom and Alex drove to the Surrey residence of one of many membership’s board. Drinks and snacks have been laid out, however the dialog quickly turned to enterprise.
“We have been going spherical and spherical in circles,” remembers Tom.
“Harlequins have been saying to me, if I fell on my sword, for need of a greater time period, they might assure me future employment, repay a few of my mortgage, pay for me to go on sabbatical and we’ll assure my girlfriend’s future employment.
“However, if I got here ahead and instructed the reality they mentioned l would bury the membership.”
Pissed off, pressured and drained after three hours of forwards and backwards, Alex excused herself for a cigarette break. As she stubbed it out and ready to return into the assembly, she noticed Tom coming in the wrong way.
He had given up. He would run away, go away the nation, flip his again on rugby, begin once more – something to get out of this case.
Alex hadn’t completed although. She wished to ask yet one more query of the 13 males within the room.
She walked again in.
“I keep in mind the shock on their faces when it was simply me standing there,” she says.
“I mentioned ‘I am actually sorry to hassle you once more, however do you thoughts if I simply have you ever for a pair extra minutes? I simply wish to ask you all individually one query’.
“I went spherical and I really pointed to each single individual and I simply mentioned, ‘Is that this Tom’s fault?’ And every of them gave a convincing no. Each single one in all them.”
“Alex humanised me once more, as a result of I had dehumanised myself, Harlequins had dehumanised me,” says Tom.
“I used to be a pawn by that time, and I used to be able to be moved in any manner that anybody pushed me.
“She was the individual from exterior of this tight rugby centric-environment who may minimize by that.
“She mentioned what had gone on was not my fault – what had gone on was incorrect – and made individuals realise that.”
