- “All clubs play with the same ball” up to a point
- There is something seriously wrong with Arsenal’s admin
By Tony Attwood
It is of course every parent’s nightmare. Your child is talented enough to get into the youth programme at a league club, and is unbelievably happy about that. And quite likely so would you be, as the proud parent. “So what’s you Robbie up to these days?” you are asked. “Oh he’s in the youth programme at xxxx” (fill in the name of the club, and watch the look of envy on every other parent’s face.)
What more could you want? Your child is happier than ever, working harder than ever, and you have the story of a lifetime to tell the neighbours, your friends, your relatives…
And best of all, this is not like school where you have to try every reward until the sun to get your son or daughter to work. As a football trainee, your youngster absolutely wants to be there. Talk about living the dream!
So you probably tell the neighbours, and maybe even have a little chat with a journalist live on the local radio station. The local newspaper might pick up on it too. And your child is so happy until….
Until…
Suddenly something is wrong, and you can’t work out what it is. The smile has gone. The young player feigns illness and doesn’t want to go into training. Or perhaps even worse, goes into training, but comes back, sullen, silent, and spends more and more time alone in the bedroom. This, you think, is surely not how it is meant to be.
Maybe you talk it through in the family, but what can anyone say? Maybe you talk it through with the club, but they just say, “Well, it can happen… football’s not for everyone…” And every day you realise you have lost your happy, excited youngster, until she/he is hardly recognisable.
The reality is that none of us ever believe that something this wonderful could go terribly wrong. And we absolutely can’t imagine the worst of all scenarios – that MY child could be abused in some way at a football club.
And here, I am not just talking about sexual abuse, which is of course the most pernicious and evil of all the abuses. But let us not forget bullying is also abuse. And that might not just be shouting at children in a wholly unreasonable manner, it can also be threats, and indeed playing a child in a match when the child is injured simply because there is no one else available for that position…. “Come on, if you want to be in football, you’ll have to man up…”
So yes, abuse is not just the sexual abuse that was part of the mega abuse cases we have heard about in English and Scottish league clubs it can exist in other forms. And it is not part of every club, but the fact is that it is very hard to ascertain if abuse is happening when the child is so desperate to play football.
Indeed if your talented child started showing signs of unhappiness about the game she/he had previously loved, what would you do? What could you do?
This can be a problem because it is possible for a welfare officer to be more interested in protecting the good name of the club rather than the welfare of the children. After all, once the story gets around that there has even been an allegation of abuse at a club, no parent in her/his right mind would allow a child to train there.
And then you find the FA have made it clear they won’t take such issues on, saying complaints have to go to the club. The police don’t seem to be interested and suggest it is a matter for the FA or the relevant League. The club’s often don’t want to investigate their own staff, especially if they suspect something awful has been going on under their noses for years.
Now let me confess, I am only reporting from anecdotal evidence, but this is how the story appears to me. Clubs, leagues, FA, police, no one wants to touch child abuse allegations relating to football. You could try your MP, but MPs are swamped and from what I have been told will most likely tell parents to go to the club or the league or the FA…
And we might ask why the FA don’t have a widely advertised helpline for helpful parents. Of course I don’t know; maybe it’s not in their charter, maybe they don’t have the resources, maybe they are worried there is a lot more abuse than we think.
Then there is the government – but they won’t intervene because Uefa and Fifa stipulate that governments cannot interfere in football matters. The police? Well, there I do have some sympathy – they are completely understaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed.
The local newspaper maybe? Except that if they ask difficult questions, the club will remove their press passes and they’ll lose their free tickets and access to players for what might be just a child’s invented story….
In fact we have a huge problem because it seems there is no one who is willing and able to investigate potential child abuse in football clubs.
If there is an investigative route that works tell me, and I’ll report it. However maybe it is about time to ask, why on earth the route toward reporting abuse is not more obvious.
