BRIGHTON and Hove Albion have admitted they may never find out who smeared excrement on the floor of the Crystal Palace dressing room earlier this month.
The Championship club said they had now ended their investigation into the incident before the two sides' play-off semi final clash at the Amex stadium.
In a statement on the club's website chief executive Paul Barber also said it was possible the incident was "not a deliberate act of vandalism" at all.
He said: "This issue generated very negative press coverage, inconvenience to our visitors for which we have apologised, as well as speculation and rumour, much of it exaggerated or untrue. To be clear, the incident was confined to the floor and to the paper dispenser area of one cubicle in the visitors' dressing room toilets. No 'messages' were scrawled on the floor or anywhere else. And it remains a slight possibility that this was not a deliberate act of vandalism as attempts had been made to clean up the area before the issue was brought to our attention.
"Numerous club employees and contractors need access to the tunnel area of our stadium to do their jobs. There is no evidence that a member of the club's staff was responsible. Equally, we cannot be sure who was. Unfortunately, we are very unlikely to know exactly what happened, but access and security to the tunnel area have been reviewed and some changes will be implemented next season. It is now time to move on."
