Letters to the editor: Scandal of child abuse in football

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7 December 2016
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As a former director of a football club with a top-rated academy, I welcome the Football Association’s long overdue move to investigate the sexual exploitation of children whose love of the game has been abused by predatory perverts posing as coaches.

At Fulham FC we were proud when our academy at Motspur Park received the FA’s “exemplary” classification. We always put the welfare of young players first. That meant the parents of a candidate for admission were involved in every decision.

If the parents were happy, the child would be too. There could be no progress without that. The many graduates from the Fulham academy would be able to testify to the enlightenment of a benevolent regime that put the interests of the young player first. Money was one of those interests but never the most important.

It is high time that the FA took steps to cut out a cancer that has got to the heart of the game. But it is surprising that it has taken so long to wake up to what has been going on.

It should not have taken the spectacle of middle-aged men having to bare their souls on television, with harrowing accounts of the abuse they suffered as boys, for the governing body of the English game to be aware of what has been happening. There have been enough scandalous court cases, convictions and lengthy sentences of men who used their positions of power over ambitious youngsters to slake their lust for the FA to know that investigation was the very least that was required.

In television interviews the long-serving boss of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Gordon Taylor, has admitted that allegations have been out there for years. And yet no one was in a hurry to do anything about a truly scandalous situation.

Most of the thousands of children who bear the mental and physical scars of sexual abuse are not abandoned or orphaned children but the sons and daughters of ordinary families where, however poor they might be, there is love, care and attention.

Parents should follow their instincts and not be afraid to act if they suspect something is wrong in the world their child inhabits. It is a parent’s job to sniff out the cause of their child’s silence or moody behaviour and deal with it in a decisive manner.

But prevention is better than cure. It does not need new acts of Parliament or another public inquiry for parents to protect their children. All it needs is the ability to spot what might be going on and then do something about it.

There is no need for a moral panic. This problem has always been with us. There have always been predators hanging about on the fringes of society, ready to abuse other people’s children for their own sexual gratification.

I am aware that predatory perverts are sophisticated criminals who are adept at using the wonders of the internet to further their designs on innocent children. That is why it is incumbent on parents to invigilate what their children are doing on their computers.

It does not matter if their vigilance is resented or even if it causes family friction from time to time. Those children will grow up to have children of their own and will realise their parents did the right thing in trying to protect them.

I very much hope that the troubled official inquiry into historic child abuse in Britain eventually exposes those responsible for these terrible crimes. That is the least to be expected in any society wishing to regard itself as civilised.

Over the main entrance of the Old Bailey is carved in stone that the purpose of the law is “to safeguard the innocent and protect the children of the poor”. I think it is about time we started doing that.
Michael Cole, director, Fulham Football Club, 1997-2013

Rice simply did not get Shakespeare

Having read Fiona Mountford’s review of The Little Matchgirl at Shakespeare’s Globe [“Masterful storytelling strikes a sad note”, December 2], I have to disagree with some of her views.

There seems to be a myth that the Globe’s departing artistic director Emma Rice was a breath of fresh air and that those on the theatre’s board could not handle her “new-fangled ideas”. As regular theatregoers and lovers of the Globe, my daughter and I were initially open to Rice’s ideas. She did the comedies reasonably well, although they were a bit “in your face” and included lines such as “youths at Shoreditch” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, presumably in the mistaken belief that they would make it trendy.

It became clear that Rice’s stamp on a production was like a brand. In the end, it was not the gimmicks that have caused her tenure to come to an end prematurely but a failure to grasp what the plays are about.
Emma Goldman

RMT strikes are all Southern’s fault

This week Southern’s RMT staff are striking. As a member of the drivers’ union, Aslef, I support them — and as a customer of Southern I back them even more. If RMT staff are treated with as much “respect” by Southern’s bosses as we passengers are, is it any surprise they are upset?

Not only will RMT staff lose two days’ pay for every strike, they will also lose travel perks and sick pay. Passengers should join them on strike and make Southern realise how bad the service is. The fact that the boss of Southern’s owner Govia Thameslink gets paid £2.6 million a year, and the company has announced a 2.3 per cent increase in ticket prices for next year, is scandalous.
Tom Case Harcourt

In 20 years of commuting I have never known such a terrible train service as that offered by Southern.This year has been beyond awful and I can see no end in sight, especially as the Government has said it will not intervene because Transport Secretary Chris Grayling does not think “passengers would thank us for a costly intervention”. As a taxpayer and fare-payer, I think many would.

Does Grayling think it is acceptable that decent, hard-working commuters are expected to put up with such an unreliable train service? Or that commuters are fired or have to resign their jobs because of the poor service? As we face more weeks of severe disruption, when is something going to change?
Stephanie Mounfield

Migrants’ struggle to learn English

While we were pleased that your article [“Migrants should swear oath to British values, says Government report”, December 5] highlights the plight of women marginalised by their poor English language skills, it also overplays the proposal of an “oath of integration” against the need to invest in tailored language provision.

Our research into why migrant and refugee women struggle to learn English found that classes were inaccessible due to cost and a failure to provide lessons in spaces where women feel safe. If the Government really wants to improve the provision and funding of language classes, these barriers and others — including poor mental health and childcare needs — must be understood.
Olivia Darby and Emily Loud, The Wonder Foundation

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