An Icelandic teenager reveals today how she spent a night of passion with England star Phil Foden at the team hotel before Gareth Southgate’s security guards barged into her room at 6am searching for the young player.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Lara Clausen says she slept with the Manchester City midfielder only hours after he made his debut for the Three Lions against Iceland, without knowing about his girlfriend and young son.
The revelation comes amid growing concerns about young people putting others at risk by breaking Covid rules and, in particular, the warning issued this week by the health minister, Lord Bethell, urging them not to spread virus by having sex.
MailOnline was told how Foden, 20, further increased the risk of spreading the virus ahead of England’s trip to Denmark by meeting Lara, 19, and her cousin. The women booked two rooms at the hotel and joined Foden and teammate Mason Greenwood in the early hours of Sunday morning, breaking Iceland’s strict Covid quarantine rules.
The episode, which ended when the players went to their own rooms at 3am, led England boss Southgate to send them home in disgrace, accusing them of being ‘naïve’. Both stars were fined £1,360 by Icelandic police and later issued grovelling apologies for their ‘unacceptable’ behaviour.
Lara recalled how she was woken three hours after Foden sneaked out of her bed by England’s security team, who searched her room, demanding: ‘Where are the boys? Where are the boys?’
Lara Clausen, 19, is the daughter of two lawyers and lives with her parents in the town of Keflavik in southwest Iceland
Lara, a student at the local college, said that she had ‘no idea’ who Manchester City star Phil Foden was when she met him
Young midfielder Foden was captured dressed in his pants with his bottom exposed in a video shot by Lara in her room
Lara (left) was pictured with her cousin Nadia Sif Lindal Gunnarsdottir (right) on the night they went to the England team’s hotel to meet the young stars, who both made their debuts for the national team against Iceland on Saturday
Lara looked on as the uniformed officer stormed into her room while two other men watched him. ‘They turned on the lights and he looked in the bathroom and in the cupboards, looking for the players,’ she said.
‘We felt they didn’t treat us with any respect. They thought we were just foreign girls that didn’t matter and weren’t worth anything,’ the student added.
Her cousin, model Nadia Sif Lindal Gunnarsdottir, 20, had arranged the meeting with Manchester United striker Greenwood after they met on an exclusive dating app.
Nadia booked a room on the seventh floor of the £55-a-night Radisson Blu Saga Hotel in Reykjavik, while the players were staying on the third floor.
Lara, a keen make-up artist who lives with her parents, who run a law firm in the town of Keflavik in southwest Iceland, said she dropped Nadia off at the hotel at midnight on Sunday.
But while she was driving home Nadia called her, saying that ‘a player called Phil’ had arrived, asking if she had a friend. ‘I asked on the phone who this guy was and he got offended that I didn’t know him,’ Lara said.
‘I got his name and looked at his picture on Instagram to see what he looked like. Then I agreed to come back to the hotel.’
Before doing so, however, she stopped to buy three bags of Maynards Sour Patch Kids sweets for Nadia and the two footballers. Her cousin transferred money into her account to pay for the sweets.
Lara, right, and her cousin, model Nadia, 20, left, met the England footballers at the £55-a-night Radisson Blu Saga Hotel, Reykjavik. Both women booked neighbouring rooms on floor seven
Greenwood, left, and Foden, right, sharing a joke in training. Both players have apologised for their ‘unacceptable’ behaviour
Foden, right, shows Greenwood, left, something funny on his phone in an image captured by Lara at the England team hotel
Before going to the hotel Lara stopped to buy three bags of Maynards Sour Patch Kids sweets for Nadia and the two footballers
‘I got to the hotel and it was very quiet,’ Lara said. ‘It was a nice hotel, I was impressed by it. I booked a room and paid for it. It cost 10,000 Króna (£55).
‘Phil had told me he would pay me back, but he didn’t. I got room 700 on the seventh floor, and Nadia was 702. The boys were on the third floor.
‘I put my stuff in my room and went to Nadia’s room. The boys were not there at first. Then they came as I was in the bathroom.
‘We talked for half an hour in Nadia’s room. We told them we knew nothing about football and had no idea who they were. We hadn’t watched the game or anything.
‘They found it funny. Mason lied about his age. He said that he was 20, but he is only 18. I suppose he was feeling nervous. None of us drank any alcohol. We just had the sweets.
‘Then Phil asked to go to my room, just the two of us. I said yes. He put some comedy on the TV, I don’t know which show it was.
‘He told me he was in the Guinness Book of Records for being the youngest player to get some trophy. I said ‘yes, that’s nice’. He said that he was excited for the future.’
She added: ‘He was just like an average boy. I didn’t feel he was anyone famous. We joked around a lot. He didn’t tell me about his personal life, definitely not about a kid or a girlfriend.’
Foden, who is five foot six, then asked how tall the Icelandic woman was. He seemed relieved when she replied that she was only five foot two.
‘I told him Nadia’s probably bigger than you,’ Lara recalled. ‘Then he just kissed me. He didn’t reply, I didn’t think. I just kissed him back. He was a good kisser.
Lara said she had ‘no idea’ Foden has a girlfriend Rebecca Cooke (together left) or a one-year-old son Ronnie (pictured right)
When the sex was over, Mason and Nadia came into her room, and the United forward starting taking videos of them.
‘We had a lot of fun,’ Lara recalled. ‘Mason was talking about how good my ass was. I felt OK about it. I was fully dressed. He was telling Phil that. I told them I could hear them, and he said yeah, that’s OK.
England boss Gareth Southgate’s security team burst into the women’s bedroom at 6am searching for the players
‘Phil said I was hot and beautiful and agreed that I had a good ass. I really think he had a good time with me. He talked nicely about me, telling me how beautiful I was. All sorts of things. Then he hugged me and told Mason I was a ‘keeper’.’
At about 3am, they went back into Nadia’s room. Foden was still wide awake, but Greenwood said he was tired and that the players needed to get some rest.
‘Mason told Phil to say his goodbyes,’ Lara recalled. ‘Phil told me he had a good time, then kissed me and went out. As he was walking away he called out, ‘text me’, and I said OK.
Phil added me on Snapchat and sent me some pictures and emojis, saying he had a good time.
‘I said the same, and sent him a picture of me. He said I was beautiful again. Then Nadia and I both fell asleep in the same bed.’
Three hours later, however, at 6am, the women were awoken by a hammering on the door. ‘Nadia opened it, and the security team was standing there,’ Lara said.
‘They burst in, shouting ‘Where are the boys? Where are the boys?’ We told them they left ages ago.
‘They turned on the lights and looked in the bathroom, in the cupboards and everything. We were pretty mad because we were just staying in the hotel like any other guest. We told them they had no right to barge in like that.’
The women were forced to wait in their nighties until the search was concluded. ‘We went back to sleep until 9am, and were woken up by a phone call from an Icelandic paper saying they were publishing my videos,’ said Lara.
‘The paper man told us that the players should have been in quarantine, and we said we didn’t know. When I think about it now, I feel sorry for them being kicked out the team.’
Lara says Foden asked her to book a room at the Radisson Blu Saga Hotel, in Reykjavik, Iceland, where they spent the evening
Lara said the meeting was organised by her cousin Nadia who met Greenwood on a dating app. She dropped Nadia off at the hotel and was driving home when Nadia phoned and asked her to come back because ‘a man called Phil’ wanted to meet her
Lara, who wants to be a lawyer, has passion for make-up artistry and beauty. When she returned to the hotel she brought with her some Maynards Sour Patch Kids sweets for Nadia and the two footballers
After her pictures of Foden went viral, her life has been turned upside down. ‘I filmed Phil with his pants halfway down, and put it on Instagram just for my closest friends,’ she said. ‘But one of them recorded it and sent it to the newspapers.
‘My mum screamed at me and said I should be ashamed. She was in shock because I was ended up in every paper in Iceland. My dad and brother said I had been sleeping with the enemy, as they are Arsenal fans.’
When she heard that Southgate had thrown the two players out of the squad, she contacted Foden on Snapchat to see if he was OK.
‘He was mad. He said, ‘Why did you have to do it? Why did you have to take photos?’ I tried to explain, but he just said he didn’t have time for this. That was the last time we were in contact.’