- Possible names for Tottenham’s stadium, and the season compared
- Arteta is performing miracles. Turning Arsenal into Spurs II won’t help matters.
by Tony Attwood
There are a lot of things I could say are wrong with football in England, but right at the very top of the list, I think it would have to be the fact that the issue of the bullying and maltreatment of young players keeps coming up, and no one seems to want to investigate the matter.
The situation is this: people report that either they, or one of their children, has been maltreated within a football club (be it amateur, professional or semi-pro) in a manner that in any other circusmtance would be called bullying – for example by the youngster being forced to commit degrading acts, being forced to play or train when injured, etc etc.
Obviously, although I have written about this before, I am not a person able to investigate such matters. But I am disturbed by the fact that I keep hearing the same story over and over again. Quite often, an issue of alleged bullying is reported by a parent of a young footballer to the various football authorities and to the police, but none of them will accept that investigating the matter is within their remit.
And by the “various authorities” I mean organisations such as the Football Association, the football league of which the club in which the alleged bullying took place is a member, the local police force which covers the area in which the alleged incidents took place, children’s welfare organisatiions, or indeed any other organisation that one might think could or should be responsible for investigating such issues.
Each organisation, on reading a report of alleged bullying within a football club simply says, “This is not for us.”
My point here is not that on a specific day, a particular apprentice or junior player was treated wholly inappropriately. What I am looking for is a directive. To whom should one report the bullying of an youn player in a football club? And if that gets no satisfactory reply, what then? My children are all adults now with their own professions and ways of life, and none of my grandchildren have sought to work for a football club. So this is not personal – it is about the general lack of any directive relating to this matter.
The issue that gets me frustrated and worked up, is that no one but no one seems to be able to say to me, or indeed any of the many other people who have raised the issue, “If you have an allegation of bullying of a young player in a football club and that football club won’t respond, or engage with you in any way, the organistaion that you should report the matter to is…..”
And that’s the point – when an issue of bullying in a football club is made, the parent or guardian doesn’t even get that response. Instead, all they get is a reply that says, “That’s not in our remit” or simply “that’s not for us.”
So parents who have a child who reports bullying within a football club (and let me stress this relates to the alleged bullying by one member of a club of a child who is playing for or training with, or having a trial with the club) are simply brushed aside. No one says, “you need to report this to the local association” or anything else. If they did, the report could be acted upon, and I could publish the result. Such as….
“If you know of a child who has reported that he or she has been bullied within a club at any level, in any way, the first course of action must be to report the issue to…..
“Then, if you get no satisfaction there, you should report the issue to…
“And in a final resort, if all else fails, you go to….”
Now you might think it should be dead easy to fill in those blanks. For example, in the first case, it could be the manager of the club, irrespective of whether the child is being given a trial at a Premier League club or a club in a very junior league. The response should be clear, such as “go to the club manager, and if nothing happens, go to the secretary of the league involved.” Or whatever the protocol is.
But no, time and again I am told by parents that the only answer they get is, “we don’t deal with that.” And that reply comes from every level within the game.
I think this is an utter scandal, which is why I keep writing about it. I would love for a newspaper or radio station to pick up on the issue, but it seems they are not interested either.
So I am left with one question: “Why will no one take up this issue?” Not the club, the league, an association that looks after young people’s welfare, social services, the police, the media… No one will deal with complaints about the bullying of young people within football clubs.
And this is supposed to be a civilised country.
