SFA burying their heads in the sand
Child protection in sport has, rightfully, been scrutinised in the press in the past two years as historic incidents of abuse have come to light, particularly in the area of youth football.
As deputy convener of the cross party health and sport committee, I spoke in a debate this week on our committee’s inquiry into child protection in sport.
The committee’s work focused on seeking assurances that the current safeguards in place across football, and other sports, are adequate to ensure that sexual abuse of children could not happen today in sport.
However, the committee’s findings in relation to current safeguards in football left us with severe concerns regarding the current protections being afforded to youth footballers.
Our insights into the operation of the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Scottish Youth Football Association (SYFA) found the two associations woefully lacking in the application of current rules governing the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme for coaches and others involved with young players.
The BBC reported in December of last year that 2,500 coaches working in youth football had not been PVG checked.
When asked whether the figures reported were accurate, we found the information provided to us by the SYFA inconsistent, both in relation to the rate of turnover of its membership and the number of checks undertaken, as well as the levels of backlog in PVG checks since at least August 2016.
The PVG scheme is an important component of the child protection measures used by football clubs. To not have this most basic of protection measures operating effectively was an alarming finding.
The SFA did detail some tightening of procedures. They have appointed a child wellbeing and protection manger. They have also agreed a directive to be implemented by all its members to provide greater consistency.
Their approach was explained as being “soft-touch” to ensure policies were in place, as opposed to being implemented.
As a committee we believe that the current “soft touch” approach is simply not working effectively to protect children and young people participating in football.
The SFA have the power and procedures available to them to address this and the committee called for the current failings to be eradicated, failing which we want to see all government funding, grants and other monies stopped.
The central concern at the heart of all these issues is power and the power imbalance in the relationship between professional football clubs and young people.
The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Tam Ballie told the committee that this imbalance was unique to football and arose he stated “as it was in the clubs’ vested interests to have complete control of the children”.
He emphasised everything was done to the advantage of the professional football clubs and to the disadvantage of the children involved.
It was alarming that the chief executive of the SFA stated he did not believe there was a power imbalance because there had been a number of changes to their procedures.
However, only last week we saw accusations in the press that in the case of Celtic Boys Club kids are being bullied and put at risk with no consequences for the alleged perpetrators.
Rather than taking responsibility for the concerns we had highlighted, the SFA attempted to exert power by deflecting blame.
This included, upon publication of the committee report, the SFA launching a personal attack at our convener, Neil Findlay MSP, to deflect from the fact that he was merely expressing our consensual committee views on our concerns with their performance.
For improvements to be made in youth football, fundamental changes need to made.
The SFA and SYFA have not been playing by the rules. Their conduct has not been in the spirit of the game and it is time this kind of behaviour was given the red card.
It is time this kind of behaviour was given the red card!