A lost career at the top level is worth £10m, and £35,000 does not reflect that
MANCHESTER CITY’S determination to prevent those young footballers who suffered abuse at Barry Bennell’s hands from suffering further devastating experiences in the courts has perhaps not been fully appreciated.
The club waited months for approval from insurers to launch their compensation scheme but could not get an answer so went ahead anyway.
They will claim against the insurers further down the line. They will also pay out to a group of Bennell feeder clubs with which there is a far less distinct link than the now notorious Whitehill FC, which was City in anything but name.
But while the club’s modernity contrasts with Crewe Alexandra’s resolve to march victims through the adversarial judicial system, the great unknown — and possibly the area of great financial cost to clubs — lies in the realm of lost earnings.
Football is waiting to see if a player or players can demonstrate they were so traumatised by the systematic abuse inflicted upon them that they were deprived of a career in a game which was beginning to pay out very substantial wages by the early 1990s.
City say they want to ‘do the right thing’ by those abused and, to a large extent, their ‘survivors’ scheme’ reflects that.
But an ex-player from one of the feeder clubs would have no inkling that he may be entitled to far more than City’s rather arbitrary figure of £35,000 — if he could demonstrate that a career had been denied him.
Bennell’s victims might have had careers between the mid-1980s — when the average annual pay for a First Division footballer was nearing £50,000 — to the late 2000s, when it had hit £1m in the Premier League. If a former player could demonstrate the loss of a 15-year career from the early 1990s, lost earnings could total around £10m.
Proving that a youth player would have made it to the big time is not straightforward. But that does not mean it should not be explored. ‘The right thing’, where the small number who might fall into this category are concerned, would be the opportunity to apply to City’s scheme with the claim that they had been denied a career.
And for City to allow a group of independent adjudicators, with no connection with the club, to make that assessment.
Legal opinion is that there is no reason why a compensation scheme should not examine each player’s case on the basis of its own facts. And those who assess claims for City should have done no legal work for them in the present or past.
Most victims will be served very well by City’s decision to follow an increasing number of organisations — from News Group Newspapers to Lambeth Council — down the path of establishing a compensation scheme, when many have been clearly wronged.
Some who had no intention of pursuing a civil case will find themselves compensated. But the cost of one ruined career would surpass payments to the many.