By Tony Attwood
12 years ago an article appeared on the internet under the heading “Football Clubs Facing ‘Pandora’s Box’ of Sexual Assault Claims.” Since then, you might be forgiven for thinking that “Pandora’s box” was a myth, because although there have been a couple of explosive cases, that was it. It is no longer a story.
But there is one other point, since in 2021, the BBC reported that, “An independent review into historical child sexual abuse in football has found the Football Association did not do enough to keep children safe”. The report looked at the abuse of children between 1970 and 2005 and concluded that the FA acted “far too slowly” to put child protection measures in place.
But then what? Mick Mills was accused of “turning a blind eye” to initiation ceremonies, which amounted to sexual assault, while he was manager of Stoke City as George Blackstock, a former youth player at that club, launched a civil case against the club for post-traumatic stress. There was talk of taking the lid off a Pandora’s box of abuse cases against young players.
An independent review found over 240 suspects and nearly 700 survivors, with significant institutional failings by the Football Association and individual clubs. And that last point is important, since it is the FA that oversees such investigations. If the investigator is inept, then who investigates the investigator?
Moving on, the Sheldon Review found that the FA’s efforts to protect children were utterly insufficient and inadequate. Convictions followed of men such as Bennell, Higgins, Ormond and Heath, and clubs acknowledged in several cases that men in the club knew the abuse was going on, but did nothing about it.
Reports flourished, the NSPCC was swamped with calls. Legal cases began, and the comment that, “The manager knew, the development officer knew, everyone knew, and no one took action,” became a common part of the complaints, some of which were of a sexual nature, others of which were just plain bullying.
And then… it sort of went quiet. Which is to say not quiet, for anyone following the cases who had made contact with those affected, but for the media. The stories of abuse, the reporting of court cases…. it all stopped. And a few people with an investigative turn of mind began to wonder why.
Of course, one reason could be that the number of cases was small and they had now all been dealt with. But a little bit of digging deeper showed that this was not just a case of sexual assault; there was indeed widespread bullying and mistreatment of younger players going on, including playing juniors when injured.
But curiously, not a word was said of this in the media. It was as if the story happened, and then vanished. Even if one ignores the moral context, the allegation of bullying and mistreatment of youngsters in a few clubs in a world-famous league was surely of interest. Yet no one followed it up.
The argument that “that’s because it wasn’t there” was certainly set out as an explanation, but against this were the reports of threats from clubs that if the claimant or his family proceeded with legal action, the club (with obviously more resources than the parent) would tie the parent up in court until the parents’ money ran out. And since there is no union for the protection of the parents of young footballers, that was a real threat.
These days we hear hardly anything about the abuse of young players within clubs, so does that mean it has all stopped?
That is certainly a possible answer, but there is a worrying side-issue here. People who are concerned about the abuse their sons suffered in football clubs and who have tried to report the issue, say that they find there is no organisation within football in England that is willing to investigate such matters. The Football Association, The Football League, The Independent Football Regulator – none of them accept that cases of child bullying are within their remit.
And this is interesting because child abuse is an extraordinarily important issue and one that to my mind, we should all be concerned about in a civilised society. And yet they each seem to say, “No, we don’t deal with that!”
Now maybe they are right. Maybe for each of these august bodies, child abuse is not an issue within their remit. That seems utterly shocking to me, but maybe each body’s constitution has been drawn up in that way. But that leaves two questions.
First, which professional body is there to investigate and oversee the protection of children in football clubs? Is there really none? If so, that is shocking. But if there is such an agency, could they please let us know, so we can say to parents, “if you have a concern, this is where you go.”
And second, why is the mass media not interested? Now I have had a couple of sources tell me that they have been told that anyone who even asks about this issue is going to find themselves blacklisted in terms of being a football journalist, and any publication that makes any suggestion that child abuse is happening in football is going to find all co-operation removed.
So we have a choice in terms of what we believe. Either child abuse in football clubs is a thing of the past, or else, the clubs have told journalists, that if they touch this subject, they will be blacklisted in terms of interviews and the like, by all professional clubs.
It seems likely that one of these two is the explanation for the subject vanishing from sports reporting in this country. Yet both are appalling and unsavoury. But the only alternative is that yes, amazingly, what was an epidemic of child abuse in football clubs suddenly stopped. If so, that is something to be celebrated, and really, we ought to know what it was that was done. Because it worked, and we should all be pleased.
