- FA accused of institutional failure after Bennell 1994 conviction
- Clubs singled out for failures over historical abuse
Generations of young people suffered horrific sexual abuse at many of England’s professional and amateur football clubs due to a wholesale absence of child protection policies, ignorance and naivety, an inquiry for the Football Association has concluded.
Led by Clive Sheldon QC, the inquiry identified failures to act adequately on complaints or rumours of sexual abuse at eight professional clubs, including Chelsea, Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Southampton, Peterborough – and at Manchester City, Crewe Alexandra and Stoke City, where the prolific abuser Barry Bennell was a youth coach. Sheldon found that in general, football and the young people who played the sport were left vulnerable to abuse by an absence of a safeguarding culture, that victims were bullied, scared or manipulated into silence, and very few specific reports of abuse were made within clubs, or to the FA.
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