England's Football Association acted much too slowly to protect children against sexual abuse in the sport because of its own "significant institutional failings," a review into historic child abuse concluded.
The independent review, commissioned by English football's governing body in 2016, found there were at least 240 suspects and 692 survivors of sexual abuse as of August last year.
The review was launched after a victim broke taboo by speaking in public about how he was abused as a young footballer by his coach, encouraging many others to break their silence.
Some of the victims said they were abused repeatedly and revealed the deep impact it had on their lives. Their evidence led to a number of high-profile convictions, and some of England's leading clubs have faced criticism.
The review contained stinging criticism of the FA's slowness to act between October 1995 — a month after an Olympic swimming coach was found guilty of raping two teenage swimmers — and May 2000, when the FA launched a child protection program.
"The FA acted far too slowly to introduce appropriate and sufficient child protection measures, and to ensure that safeguarding was taken seriously by those involved in the game," said the 710-page report that was conducted by senior lawyer Clive Sheldon and released on Wednesday.
"These are significant institutional failings for which there is no excuse," it said. "It is clear that a great deal of sexual abuse did occur within football from 1970 to 2005."
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said the findings marked a "dark day for the beautiful game" and addressed the victims of abuse in a statement.
Our CEO, Mark Bullingham, has issued a statement on the Sheldon Report regarding allegations of non-recent child sexual abuse in football.
— The FA (@FA) March 17, 2021
"No child should ever have experienced the abuse you did," he said. "What you went through was horrific and it is deeply upsetting that more was not done by the game at the time, to give you the protection you deserved."
But Julian Knight, the chair of British parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said the FA's failure to protect children was "truly shocking".
"We could be looking at the biggest safeguarding scandal in football's history," he said. "The FA has grave questions to answer about its past record and needs to reassure parents about what it's doing now to ensure that children are being kept safe from predators."
FA Criticized
The report criticised the FA's failure to act against Barry Bennell, a coach at lowly Crewe Alexandra who later joined Manchester City, one of England's top Premier League clubs, and is now serving a 34-year prison sentence for child sexual abuse.
The report said the FA was aware Bennell had pleaded guilty in Florida in 1995 to sexual abuse of a child and that, even though he was jailed in England in 1998, did not suspend him until 2011.
"The failure to take any action with respect to Bennell following his release from prison in 2003 is troubling," the report said. "Although there is no evidence that Bennell did seek to involve himself further with football, the FA had taken no steps to prevent this from happening."
Former FIFA General Secretary Sepp Blatter, when he was still head of world soccer's governing body, wrote to the FA in 1995 about Bennell's U.S. conviction, asking if it had any more information on the case after Florida's State Attorney recommended a worldwide ban, it said.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by John Stonestreet, Alison Williams and Timothy Heritage)
