LEICESTER – All charges have been dropped against three British football players accused of sexual assault in Spain, it was reported Thursday.

Paul Dickov, Frank Sinclair and Keith Gillespie will not face further action, Tim Davies, chief executive of Leicester City, told the BBC.

The footballers were charged after three women accused them of serious sexual assault at a hotel in La Manga.

Davies said the trio would not have to go back to Spain, where they spent a week in jail before being freed on bail.

He said: “As far as we are concerned it is great news and that’s what the players and their families would like to focus on.”

Nine players were originally arrested after the three women complained to police at Alicante airport, as they were about to fly home to Germany.

All have been cleared of any charges, with only formal legal paperwork to complete, Leicester City said.

Davies said the Premiership club, which had taken its squad to the La Manga sports complex on a training break, had learnt serious lessons from the incident in March.

“In hindsight we wish we had put a curfew on them, we wish we had been out with them but that didn’t happen at the time,” he said.

“Obviously we need to approach what we do – whether we go on tours in the future abroad – as a club and make sure our players’ conduct rules are appropriate.”

Davies admitted the arrests had not helped in a season when Leicester City were relegated from the Premiership.

“It has been a difficult time at the club,” he said. “How much it has affected morale at the club is impossible to say.”

Davies told the BBC he was not proud of the behaviour of the players, some but not all of whom had been drinking on the night in question.

He said: “They were out as a group together and I’ve already said they should not have been out in a group together.

“It was 14 days before a match and they are not proud of it and I am not proud of them being out at 4am.

“They should have gone to bed early as many of the players did.”

Davies said the judge had appeared to believe the statements given in court which denied the women’s claims of sexual assault.

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Subject: Spanish news