Football Association’s Sexual Abuse Report is a ‘Kick in the Teeth’, says Paul Stewart

The Football Association (FA) failed to protect children who played the game between 1995 and 2000 from predation, according to a report which examined 35 years of sexual abuse in UK football. However, the report, commissioned by the FA, says that the association wasn’t to blame for abuse that happened from 1970 to 1995, a statement against which many of those who were abused are rejecting.

The findings have come as a “kick in the teeth” for those who were abused as children by coaches and other adults in the sport, prominent footballer Paul Stewart told CNN. 

Stewart, now 56, played for England and for leading clubs, including Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, but behind the persona of a successful player was an “empty soul,” due to the sustained sexual abuse he suffered between the ages of 11 and 15 as a youth footballer, he told CNN.

Stewart said the findings absolving the FA of responsibility prior to 1995 have left victims disappointed when they had sought closure after decades of life impacted by abuse.

“This was commissioned by the FA, it was paid for by the FA and we’re going to be disappointed, aren’t we?” Stewart said per CNN. “They’re not going to completely hold their hands up and be liable for what happened.”

Coming to light

The 700-page independent review into child sexual abuse in football was commissioned by the FA in 2016 after Stewart and other former footballers, including former Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward, came forward to discuss their experiences of sexual abuse in the game.

Their accounts prompted the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the FA to set up a hotline for footballers who had experienced sexual abuse. It received over 800 calls in the first week, CNN reported.

The report on sexual abuse in UK football between 1970 and 2005 was released by lawyer Clive Sheldon last week, and found there were at least 240 suspects and 692 survivors of sexual abuse within football as of August 2020.

Sheldon noted the FA showed “significant institutional failings” in delaying the introduction of “appropriate and sufficient child protection measures” between October 1995 and May 2000.

“In my judgment, from October 1995 to May 2000, 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. These are significant failings for which there is no excuse.”

However, Sheldon reported that there was “no evidence that the FA knew that there was a serious or systemic problem of child sexual abuse within the game in England and no evidence that the FA ought to have known there was such a problem” prior to the summer of 1995.

Stewart told CNN that he and others who suffered sexual assault in this time reject this conclusion, saying their claims have been ignored.

“Prior to ’95, there is no blame on any of the clubs, on any of the establishment because they said that nobody spoke out,” he said.  “Yet these individuals have clearly said that they spoke to coaches, that they spoke to staff at clubs, and the report refuses to validate that — in fact, ignores the fact that they say that.”

FA responds

Responding to the outcry about the report, Football Association Chief Executive Mark Bullingham referred CNN back to an earlier statement. 

He said the release of the review was a “dark day for the beautiful game” in which “we must acknowledge the mistakes of the past and ensure that we do everything possible to prevent them being repeated.”

Bullingham said he’d had the privilege of meeting some survivors, “whose courage is inspirational and whose stories are incredibly moving.” 

“They will never forget what has happened to them, and this report will now ensure the game will never forget either…. No child should ever have experienced the abuse you did.”

Meanwhile, Stewart, who now works with the English Football League giving safeguarding advice to young players, said the only positives he can take from the report are 13 recommendations to increase safeguarding in the sport.

He still worries for the grassroots of the game, he told CNN. 

“You have volunteers who are normally in charge of the safeguarding,” he says. “Now, these people have jobs and some of our grassroots football clubs have upwards of 1,500 children, boys and girls. And they may only have one safeguarding officer.”

The report comes as other survivors and legislators join a growing fight to expose abuse in UK sports and stop it from happening in the future. 

In February, a group of 17 women and girls announced they were taking legal action against British Gymnastics, alleging a culture of physical and psychological abuse in its clubs against gymnasts as young as six years old.

Under a sweeping new law and order bill, sports coaches and faith leaders would no longer be able to legally have sexual relationships with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care.

Do you think there are enough safeguards in kids sports to prevent abuse? Let us know in the comments. 

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