The Philippine Online Chronicles

An unconfirmed e-mail was sent to media members from someone introducing himself as a German football coach and former Philippine Football Federations' (PFF) consultant named Paul Weiler. The e-mail accuses Philippine Azkals members Neil Etheridge, Simon Greatwich, Anton del Rosario, and Jason Sabio of raping a girl inside Azkals team manager Dan Palami's house.

"Players Anton del Rosario, Jason Sabio and especially Simon Greatwich were involved and recorded the incident also via video cam (Jason Sabio was the one holding camera). Neil Etheridge and his very best friend Simon Greatwich did rape the woman and it seems happened in a villa/house of general manager Dan Palami (who seems not know about what happened in his house and was not there). 'Master mind' of this sex violence idea seems Anton del Rosario .. so far I know he did not rape the woman but pushed the others to do it," Weiler wrote in his e-mail.

The controversy broke out amidst the team's preparations for the World Cup Asia qualifiers second round clash against Kuwait.

Palami has dismissed the rumors. “As manager of the team, if this were true this will not be tolerated,” he said. “On the other hand, I can’t impose sanctions based merely on internet blogs because actually, I can write anything on the internet. Actually many of the information on the internet are unverified so I can’t rely on these alone.”

Sabio also denied the accusations, saying "I've heard a lot of rumors and speculations, that this person (Weiler) is trying to get back at the team because we had a fallout while we were in Germany. I don't know the full story, they're all just rumors."

No formal charges have been filed against the Azkals members.