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Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP
The English Football Association has done too little to prevent child abuse.
This was the result of an independent study, the results of which have now been published.
The Football Association (FA) did not take the protection of children seriously for a long time and acted far too slowly, according to the 700-page document.
"These are significant institutional flaws for which there is no excuse."
After several perpetrators were convicted in 1995, the association only introduced measures to protect children in football clubs with a five-year delay.
"Child protection has not been seen as an urgent priority in the FA," wrote Clive Sheldon, the report's author.
On top of that, the association put children at risk because it failed to ban well-known serial offenders from football forever.
However, according to Sheldon, there was no evidence of an alleged conspiracy or cover-up by the FA.
One of these serial offenders was former youth scout Barry Bennell, who was sentenced to prison for the first time in 1995 for child molestation in the USA.
The FA then did not ban Bennell from all football activities.
At the time, Fifa General Secretary Sepp Blatter asked the FA whether it was aware of the Bennell case, which the FA denied.
Bennell, who worked as a scout with Manchester City and the Crewe Alexandra club, which is known for its youth development, had sexually abused young football players for years.
After serving a sentence three times before, he was sentenced again in 2016 to 31 years in prison for abusing a total of 50 cases against twelve boys between 1979 and 1991.
Many of the boys were not even teenagers at the time of the deeds.
The FA commissioned the investigation in 2016 after numerous former abuse victims went public with their allegations.
Clubs allegedly abused between 1970 and 2005 include Manchester City, Southampton FC, Stoke City and Crewe Alexandra.
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