City’s sympathy for sex abuse survivors
CLUB RESPONDS AFTER REVIEW INTO HISTORICAL OFFENCES
LEICESTER City have expressed their sympathy for survivors of sexual abuse after an independent review into historical offences in the game was published by the FA.
City’s statement followed the publication of Clive Sheldon QC’s 710page report yesterday afternoon, the review looking into child sexual abuse between 1970 and 2005 at football clubs up and down the country.
The review concluded there were “significant institutional failings” in protecting children, and made 13 recommendations for the future including the introduction of safeguarding training at several levels in the game, including all players and young people, as well as the FA board and senior management team.
It was also recommended that there should be safeguarding officers employed by all Premier League and English Football League (EFL) clubs.
City’s statement read: “Leicester City Football Club welcomes the recommendations of the independent review and shares the resolve of its colleagues throughout the game to ensure that football continues to develop an environment that is, above all, safe for everyone.
“The club expresses its deepest sympathies with all survivors of abuse and its admiration for those who have come forward. In doing so they will help to reinforce the game’s modern safeguarding standards.
“These standards are the club’s highest priority, around which we offer no compromise.
“All reports of abuse made to the club, non-recent or otherwise, are treated seriously, investigated thoroughly and pursued to an appropriate conclusion that is satisfactory to all associated parties.
The club strives for the highest standards and takes all reasonable steps to safeguard the vulnerable groups with which it engages.”
City were one of the clubs liaised with as part of the review following accusations against Ted Langford, a scout who worked on behalf of the club in the 1980s. Langford was jailed for sex offences against young footballers in 2007, and died in 2012.
In 2017, former City defender Tony Brien alleged abuse by Langford during his time coaching a youth team in the West Midlands that operated as a feeder club for City.
LEICESTER City are set on securing their own personal double as their focus turns to an FA Cup quarter-final with Manchester United this weekend, writes Jordan Blackwell.
While it’s a perennial debate between supporters over whether they’d prefer City to finish in the top four and qualify for the Champions League, or finally get their hands on the FA Cup, achieving both is the aim for the club.
City are well-placed in the Premier League, sitting third with an eight-point cushion to fifth, but now comes an FA Cup hurdle they have long struggled to get over.
The club’s last five quarter-finals have ended in defeat, meaning City have not reached the FA Cup’s final four since 1982.
At the end of last season, City lost at home to Chelsea to miss out on a place in the semi-finals, and then fell away in the race for the top four. Winger Marc Albrighton says he is part of a squad eager to “put that right”.
“Top four and to win a cup, that’s still the target,” he said.
“Last year our target was top six and we were up there for so long.
“The top four was talked about quite a lot and it wasn’t to be in the end. Hopefully, we’ve learned plenty from that.
“I do see a more resilient squad, a more hungry and eager squad to put that right.
“We’ve been up there all season and been in and around it. We’ll do our utmost to get in that top four.”
To still be competing in both the Premier League and FA Cup at this stage of the season is a sign of the consistency that Brendan Rodgers has brought to the club, Albrighton adds.
The manager knows his players have made progress, too, and on the second anniversary of his appointment this past month, he made that point by calling up the presentation he showed the squad on his first day in charge.
“Brendan Rodgers has really taken the club to another level in terms of we’re more consistent,” said Albrighton.
“It was good when we won the Premier League, but the year after we slipped off. That could easily have happened this year.
“We were up there last year and we could have slipped off this year, but he’s got us playing with consistency. He’s been here two years now and he went through his presentation that he gave on his first day and he went through all of the different points.
He said: ‘Think in your head about whether we’ve met these goals.
“Are we on our way to meeting these goals?
“We’re two years into a longterm plan. Are we on course for what we want to do?’
“We had met or were on our way to achieving everything he’d set out on day one.
“When he’s that prepared and he knows exactly what he wants to do, and he can implement it, that’s the sign of a top manager.”