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SFA's Independent Report on Sexual Abuse in Football


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5 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

I don't see the relevance in other club's responses, particularly in a matter like this. 

 

Rangers only comment pre-report was to claim it was an oldco matter, so I fail to see why you think that the club knows what it is doing.

I was under the impression that there's doubt as to whether the club was contacted at all. When the initial "told to contact oldco" story was published, the board commented to say the whole thing was news to them (IIRC). I suppose it may have occurred during the spiv regime years, in which case it's practically guaranteed to have been handled badly.

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Apologies are fine and sceptic were quick off the mark in this(deflection tactic) as were the other "lesser" clubs,so maybe we should too.

The amazing thing is the sudden appearance of "at least3 ?) in relation to Rangers,were they magicked from somewhere?.

As a club who appeared to do the correct thing at the time we should conduct a proper investigation into them and maybe someday publish the truth as a precedent has been set historically.

Edited by MacK1950
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1 hour ago, Thinker said:

I was under the impression that there's doubt as to whether the club was contacted at all. When the initial "told to contact oldco" story was published, the board commented to say the whole thing was news to them (IIRC). I suppose it may have occurred during the spiv regime years, in which case it's practically guaranteed to have been handled badly.

Here's the thread on it when it first came to light.

 

 

I've not heard that the club denied that they had been contacted, but it's obviously highly possible.

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Apologise, and put lots of dough into a fund to bail out the principal offender. 

 

Clubs ‘must make amends to victims’

Marc Horne

Tuesday March 02 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/clubs-must-make-amends-to-victims-8v5wgs88s

 

Celtic and Rangers must “make amends” to survivors of sexual abuse that has tarnished the reputation of the national sport, a former first minister has claimed.

Henry McLeish, who oversaw a review of Scottish football a decade ago, said every club without exception should say sorry and try to put things right.

An independent report commissioned by the Scottish FA told clubs who had failed to protect young players to offer an “unequivocal and unreserved” public apology to victims.

The document, published last month, also backed the idea of clubs contributing to a fund which would offer reparations to those affected.

 

Celtic FC, whose feeder team are embroiled in an abuse scandal spanning three decades, reiterated an apology from last year in which they said they were “very sorry” that such events took place.

 

Rangers FC have declined to make a public statement since the report was released.

 

McLeish, who signed for Leeds United and East Fife before launching a political career with the Labour party, claimed their response had fallen short.

“I love the game intensely,” he told BBC Radio Scotland. “When issues arise like this then they should be willing to apologise.” He added: “I would urge Rangers and Celtic to reflect and apologise and be part of the mainstream of Scottish thinking that looks at people who have been hard done by and wants to make redress .”

 

The Scottish FA, Motherwell, Hibernian, Falkirk, Partick Thistle, the Highland league club Forres Mechanics and Hutchison Vale, an Edinburgh youth team, have all released statements expressing contrition and remorse.

 

Last week Mairi Gougeon, the sports minister, said clubs could not evade or ignore recommendations made by the Independent Review of Abuse in Scottish Football.

 

Celtic FC has insisted it is not legally culpable for abuse which took place within Celtic Boys Club, insisting it was an “entirely separate organisation” with which it had historic connections.

However, the review concluded that senior clubs could not distance themselves from past abuse at “inextricably” linked feeder clubs. The report also said clubs should not attempt to use changes of commercial ownership or status to evade responsibility.

 

In 2018 an alleged victim of paedophile Gordon Neely, who worked at Rangers’ ground, Ibrox, between 1986 and 1991, was told he should pursue his case with liquidators as Rangers were owned by a different company when the abuse took place and that duty of care was not with the current owners.

Both Celtic and Rangers were contacted for comment.

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The battle to establish equivalence continues.

Really, and no matter how distasteful this sounds, comparing what seems to have happened at Rangers to what has been proven to have happened elsewhere in this city, is like comparing a car thief to the Krays. 

The Club cannot, and should not, permit itself to be dragged down into the stinking morass of sex crimes and their suppression, out east. Silence -dignified is a moot point- will not help in this regard.

 

The Club is, presumably, acting under advisement, but reticence and seeming lack of action allow misinterpretation and rumour to flourish. 

It has to say, and to do, something, sometime, preferably sooner, rather than later. 

 

 

Former Rangers coach denies threatening assault victim

Marc Horne

Saturday March 06 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

A former coach has emphatically denied intimidating a teenager who complained about Gordon Neely, above, the Ibrox club’s head of youth developent

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/former-rangers-coach-denies-threatening-assault-victim-ncnb9vgtd

 

A former Rangers coach has denied threatening an abuse survivor and telling him he would make his life hell for “grassing” after the allegation was made in an official report.

The Scottish FA-commissioned review on abuse expressed concern over an alleged incident in the 1990s where a teenager felt forced to leave Ibrox after he came forward to report being assaulted by Gordon Neely, the club’s head of youth development.

Neely was sacked but the report, published last month, claims his victim was then intimidated by another coach who allegedly warned him to “watch his back”.

The report said the survivor’s testimony “included a coach openly threatening that whoever had ‘grassed’ his friend and ‘got him the sack’ had better ‘watch his back’ as he would ‘make his life hell’.” The review concluded that the comments, if made, would have been likely to “silence other young players and stop them coming forward in future”.

 

The former coach, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied the allegations, describing them as “outrageous and untrue”.

He told The Times: “I absolutely did not say these types of things. I didn’t know about his penchant, what his behaviour was. I was told Neely had left to set up a business.”

The report unmasked Neely, who died in 2014, as a prolific paedophile who abused at least three other youths at Ibrox and previously attacked players at Hibernian and the Edinburgh youth side Hutchison Vale.

A spokesman for Rangers said the individual at the centre of the allegations had not been employed by the club for a considerable period of time.

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Edited by Uilleam
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