FA chairman can't rule out cover-up in child sex abuse scandal
Football Association chairman Greg Clarke has slammed "1990s society" for "sleepwalking" through the paedophile scandal that's pervading English football in 2016, and can't discount a cover-up resulting in the incidents only coming to light now.
Beginning with ex-Crewe Alexandra footballer Andy Woodward disclosing the abuse he received from former coach Barry Bennell, to the Guardian's Daniel Taylor, there are now over 20 retired players who've come forward with allegations prompting five separate police forces into action.
Clarke said he was "angry" these incidents, believed to have occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, went hidden for so long, according to BBC Sport.
"In the 1990s society - media, politics, children's homes, sport - was sleepwalking and we were part of the problem," Clarke told the Guardian.
To assist with the FA's investigation - separate from the five probes by police forces from Cheshire, Hampshire, Northumbria, the Metropolitan Police, and Greater Manchester - a leading lawyer and expert in child protection, Kate Gallafent, has been drafted in.
"We're certainly taking it extremely seriously," Clarke shared with Sky News, before adding: "I don't know if there was a cover-up or not, I really don't know."
On Gallafent's role, he explained: "I don't want to be accused of turning this into an old boys' inquiry, where all the people in football are talking to each other to make sure it's a manageable outcome.
"She will lead it, it will be her conclusions, we will act upon those conclusions and those conclusions will be disclosed."
The clubs implicated in the scandal are Bennell's former employers, including numerous clubs in the northwest, such as Crewe and Manchester City. Gordon Taylor, chief of the Professional Footballers' Association, also named Stoke City, Blackpool, Newcastle United, and Leeds United as further outfits linked to the scandal Monday, and suggested there could be one more.
When asked if this was the biggest crisis in the history of the FA, Clarke responded: "I think it's certainly the biggest one I can remember."