- Child abuse in football isn’t being dealt with in the new football regulator bill
- It is more than likely that child abuse is still rampant within professional football
On the Arsenal History site: 100 years since Chapman joined Arsenal: 10, Why Knighton had to go
By Tony Attwood
It’s an issue that has been at the heart of the numerous investigations into the abuse of young people in football clubs throughout the United Kingdom. The focus has always been on the individual carrying out the abuse of youngsters, not on the club that allowed it to happen.
But the reality is that the club, as a recruiter of young people, and as an employer, has a duty in law to keep all its employees safe. Indeed many companies do boast that they are a safe environment in which parents can leave their children.
Now of course many parents, upon realising that their son or daughter has a particular talent (be it as a footballer, pianist, actor or indeed anything else in art or sport where individual skills are valued above everything else) are so delighted and excited by the fact, that they tend to take the assurances of the teacher, football club, theatre company or anything else, that their child is safe, at face value
But the abuse of youngsters in football clubs and elsewhere shows that this is not always the case, Yet as horrific cases at multiple clubs have revealed, so widespread is the issue of abuse of youngsters at clubs that in 2016 the NSPCC set up a hotline to help footballers who have suffered abuse. Apparently, they had over 800 calls in the first week.
However – and this is the appalling tragedy of the case in 2022, as the BBC reported “Eight men who sued Manchester City after saying they were abused by paedophile Barry Bennell lost a High Court case” lost their case when the judge ruled that it had not been shown in court that Manchester City was “legally responsible for Bennell’s acts of abuse”.
So to be clear on that one, no one denied that the abuse had taken place, but rather it was argued that only the perpetrator was guilty, not the club. Clubs it seems, do not have a duty of care toward children who play for the club!!!!!!!!
As a result of this, it appears that the FA now make it clear to anyone who reports a matter of child sex abuse that they will only investigate cases against individuals and not cases against clubs.
And this despite the fact that year by year more and more clubs are added to the list of those which have allowed child sex abuse to exist under their noses.
In fact so awful is the situation that in 2016 the NSPCC set up a hotline specifically for individuals who had experienced sexual abuse at football clubs. Apparently it got nearly 1000 calls in its first week.
Now of course the issue of child sex abuse in clubs has been written about many times and in December 2016 the FA and the Scottish FA announced enquiries into child sex abuse in clubs. But all the while it was allegations against the individuals that were investigated, not on the setup of the clubs that allowed such individuals to undertake their abuse of children through using the clubs as their operating base.
Indeed Gary Johnson of Chelsea claimed the club paid him to keep quiet about the abuse he suffered. Convictions of employees at clubs followed as did unexplained deaths of others until eventually in 2021 an independent review found that the FA did not “do enough to keep children safe” and that there were “significant institutional failings”.
Which raises a key point. If numerous (and it really was numerous) clubs were not doing enough to keep youngsters safe from sex fiends, what about other issues? Were the clubs, and indeed are the clubs, keeping children and young adults safe physically? Were they, and indeed are they, ensuring that youngsters are not played when they have an injury?
The allegation that they are played when injured is one that is being made, and what we find is that the FA are taking the line that as with child sex abuse, they will not look at clubs to ensure that they are keeping the clubs safe for young people, but will only look at the cases involving the individuals. And yet the members of the Association are clubs, not individual players!!!
To me this is outrageous. Just as the clubs must have a duty to protect youngsters from sex fiends who seem to have infiltrated football across the years, so they must have a duty to ensure that the young players are also kept safe, and for example, not played when they are injured.
But the FA disagree and will only look at the cases of individuals. Which of course means that they will ask the club for evidence, the club will say “Everything necessary was done,” and that is it. Any difficult evidence (such as embarrassing medical records) are then described as “missing”.
What the media failed to do in the cases of sexual abuse was to raise the point that the FA and League, overseeing the clubs, were clearly not fit for purpose, as they refused to take up investigations against clubs that allowed abuse to happen. So we see the same story – they won’t look at a club that is accused of playing a player who should be rested because too often the result is considered more important than the long-term development of the young player.
As long suspected (at least in this office, if nowhere else) the whole protection system in football was, and remains, set up to protect the clubs, not the youngsters, who are the ones who really need protecting.
Any action against a club has to be taken by parents (who generally lack the knowledge and finance to launch such a case), because the FA who regulates the clubs won’t touch it, and that is utterly shocking and reprehensible.
In this regard the FA was and remains a total disgrace.
