Football's child sex abuse scandal

[davieG]

BBC Report - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56418652

 

LCFC Statement - https://www.lcfc.com/news/2070674/leicester-city-football-club-statement

[dynamark]

Cant wait for the investigation into the boy scouts.bad business but hopefully not so prevelant now

[ARM1968]

This thread possibly not gaining the traction it should. Terrible business all round and some heads should roll. Blind eyes were turned. 
 

trouble is, you scratch the surface of any sport during the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s and even now I imagine and this sick shite will be found. 

[st albans fox]

15 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

This thread possibly not gaining the traction it should. Terrible business all round and some heads should roll. Blind eyes were turned. 
 

trouble is, you scratch the surface of any sport during the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s and even now I imagine and this sick shite will be found. 

It’s a disgrace .... people should resign .... but they won’t ....

[Ecdysiast]

Thank you DavieG.

Not quite a whitewash but sure is magnolia at best....

Why no names? Not one...

 

[ARM1968]

The FA generate a lot of money. There should be a root and stem independent investigation across all divisions paid for by football for the sake of transparency. Clean the house and put in place proper safeguarding protocols. Anything less will just be dodging the issue. 

[davieG]

4 minutes ago, Ecdysiast said:

Thank you DavieG.

Not quite a whitewash but sure is magnolia at best....

Why no names? Not one...

 

There’s names mentioned in the BBC link.

 

This was happening in all areas of life and had been forever. Wherever you had any kind of institution where the people, men mostly in charge had total unquestioned authority it was happening.

 

 

[davieG]

2 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

The FA generate a lot of money. There should be a root and stem independent investigation across all divisions paid for by football for the sake of transparency. Clean the house and put in place proper safeguarding protocols. Anything less will just be dodging the issue. 

That’s whats been done and what the report is about, whether it’s gone deep and far enough who knows.

[ARM1968]

Just now, davieG said:

That’s whats been done and what the report is about, whether it’s gone deep and far enough who knows.

It really hasn’t. As someone above said it’s a magnolia wash and obviously so. There would be much to find if a ‘proper’ investigation was undertaken. This is just a disgrace and an insult to those impacted. IMO obviously. 

[Gresley Fox]

@dynamark do you mean boy scouts of America Or The Scouting Assoc UK? Girls can be scouts too. Your comments are rather damaging. A lot of fantastic scout and guide leaders. Nothing to do with Lcfc or football!!! 

[davieG]

3 minutes ago, ARM1968 said:

It really hasn’t. As someone above said it’s a magnolia wash and obviously so. There would be much to find if a ‘proper’ investigation was undertaken. This is just a disgrace and an insult to those impacted. IMO obviously. 

Well not having seen the full report only the headline stuff as written in the BBC article which does list some names I’ll not be judging it.

[Vardinio'sCat]

The club payed damages to a number of individuals, if I understand it correctly.  I remember a fella I knew who had been abused by Frank Beck, I haven't seen the guy for decades, but he was proper messed up, which is not surprising.

 

These terrible events cast a stain on football, and I'm not hugely confident that it has all been thoroughly investigated to the extent necessary, but I do think we are in a far safer place than even 20 years ago.  I can only hope the victims take some comfort that things are much better organised than they were, although I imagine we are still short of where we should be. One of the victims brave enough to come forward was on the radio, and sadly he was not happy with the report.

 

Wasn't Lennon at Crewe for years, has he ever spoken about it? Maybe that is not a question for today. It's a tough subject to talk about, but saying nothing isn't great either.

 

[dynamark]

Gresley fair point my experience was Scout Association back in 60 s and 70s and some dreadful stuff was going on from a minority of trusted persons.This have changed greatly since thank goodness,I would stress my overall experience was a positive one but you needed to be very aware as a teenager.

[majaco]

When I was coaching youth football, mainly in the first ten years of the 2000s, a lot of safeguards had been brought in.  Too late for many.

 

The crimes committed by people, abusing their power and influence, and bullying young lives are despicable.  When a long sentence is issued to a perpetrator,  it is in some ways good to see, but it is never enough.  The damage is done.

 

There must be so many people who have got away with this over the years.  I hope in time they are all brought to book.

 

My sympathy and solidarity go out to all survivors.

[davieG]

Considering the ongoing age of many of the FA Council I'd imagine that those in power during the 50s to 80s are probably long gone so any retrospective review is going to find it difficult to identify where things could have been better managed and challenged.

[pazzerfox]

15 minutes ago, majaco said:

When I was coaching youth football, mainly in the first ten years of the 2000s, a lot of safeguards had been brought in.  Too late for many.

 

The crimes committed by people, abusing their power and influence, and bullying young lives are despicable.  When a long sentence is issued to a perpetrator,  it is in some ways good to see, but it is never enough.  The damage is done.

 

There must be so many people who have got away with this over the years.  I hope in time they are all brought to book.

 

My sympathy and solidarity go out to all survivors.

Couldn't agree more.  The thought of this happening to a young boy makes me really sad.  All they wanted to do is play football but instead, some were subjected tp abuse without a care in the world!

[foxinsocks]

The controls are still not robust enough.  When Jimmy Savile died he would have had a valid DBS.  LCC Schools in Leicestershire recognize that working with kids is a magnet for the wrong type of people (as is foreign aid, the scouts, the choir and sports clubs etc).  When someone is prosecuted they have, on average, offended 40 times - so this is way too late.  Schools have recognized that grooming behaviours (particularly aimed at vulnerable kids) needs to be made a sackable offence:  i.e. it is not illegal to give a kid an ipad... but education workers know they will be sacked if they do this.  So all staff sign up to a list of behaviors to recognize that they will be sacked if they are involved in such.  Further, it has to be a responsibility for all members of staff to notify the authorities if they become aware of any transgressions by colleagues - this last point is vital.  All kids sports clubs should have such standards in place.

Edited 18 March 2021 by foxinsocks

[dynamark]

All good points I thank what upset me most looking back was that people who knew and worked with offenders must have known pretty well what was occuring but didnt do anything about it ,Ie turning the blind eye,not wanting to get involved .

[evil jack]

5 hours ago, Vardinio'sCat said:

Wasn't Lennon at Crewe for years, has he ever spoken about it? Maybe that is not a question for today. It's a tough subject to talk about, but saying nothing isn't great either.

 

Robbie Savage too.

[majaco]

16 hours ago, moore_94 said:

Thread was started with people talking about who they would like to see us sign, rather than links to actual targets 

 

38 minutes ago, foxinsocks said:

The controls are still not robust enough.  When Jimmy Savile died he would have had a valid DBS.  LCC Schools in Leicestershire recognize that working with kids is a magnet for the wrong type of people (as is foreign aid, the scouts, the choir and sports clubs etc).  When someone is prosecuted they have, on average, offended 40 times - so this is way too late.  Schools have recognized that grooming behavior (particularly aimed at vulnerable kids) needs to be made a sackable offence:  i.e. it is not illegal to give a kid an ipad... but education worker know they will be sacked if they do this.  So all staff sign up to a list of behaviorist to recognized that they will be sacked if they are involved in such.  Further, it has to be a responsibility for all members of staff to notify the authorities if they become aware of any transgressions by colleagues - this last point is vital.  All kids sports clubs should have such standards in place.

No coach should be on their own with kids.  I coached my daughter's team at o e point.  I was o e of two coaches, both male, working with the team.  We had a rota of mums at my request one would always stay at training as a safeguarding measure.  The community of parents and carers was brilliant .  Safeguarding was an absolute priority and was brought into by a lot of people.  We were lucky enough to have among our parents teachers, social workers, health visitors, and an ACAS negotiater.  Of course, not all adults were as on board.

 

If kids are sent to activities, parents and carers have to demand high standards of care.

[Foxxed]

23 hours ago, majaco said:

 

 

 

If kids are sent to activities, parents and carers have to demand high standards of care.

The safeguarding stuff you did sounds great. When I was at primary school we had someone come around and tell us about paedophiles hanging around in cars after school. And we were told how to spot them and what to do. Shouldn't the school system, and society in general, educate kids about institutional predators? And give the kids multiple way to report. It's more difficult than "if guy talks to you from a car, offering to give you sweets or show you puppies, run away" but surely it must be done to prevent this stuff.

[Fox in the North]

This documentary is harrowing and the worst of it is, that it doesn’t scratch the surface 

[fox_up_north]

As someone who works with kids, you do worry about being tarred with THAT brush but I do want people to know that 99.9999% of us do it because we either want to help them or pass something on. Safeguards are so much better now, to the point that I wouldn't even think about getting into a situation where I'm on my own with a child where there isn't at least an adult aware of what's going on. 

[ROB-THE-BLUE]

A good friend of mine was at Peterborough at 'that' time. He had to testify in court against Higgins. 

[Arkie Bennett]

Horrifying and heartbreaking, to hear these poor men blame themselves for allowing their abuse at the hands of these manipulative evil bastards.