Analysis: Inadequacy of child protection for decades in football and across British life shown up in inquiry’s findings
Almost five years since Andy Woodward demolished the dam of silence muffling the scale and horror of sexual abuse in football, the 700-page report by Clive Sheldon QC for the Football Association sought to explain how that hell was allowed to happen.
The stark reality of the free run predatory abusers had across England’s most celebrated sport, from grimy grassroots boys’ clubs to some of the nation’s most prestigious, remains utterly shocking from a perspective of modern safeguarding. Much of the report delves into who knew what and might have done more about the notorious abusers, including Barry Bennell, George Ormond and Bob Higgins, who have been convicted of 142 sexual offences following new prosecutions since Woodward’s landmark 2016 interview in the Guardian.
