One of the United Kingdom’s most experienced prosecutors has called on sport to introduce an independent safeguarding regulator in the wake of several high-profile allegations of abuse.
Nazir Afzal, who served as Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England between 2011 and 2015, said “the statistics in sport are as heartbreaking as you can possibly imagine”, and called for governing bodies to self-fund a mechanism through which victims can report their experiences.
In November, a Premier League footballer accused of rape was further questioned by police, while the English Football Association (FA) also opened a safeguarding inquiry into a separate leading Premier League figure who has previously been investigated by the police for a number of sex offences. Neither can be named for legal reasons.
Last month, The Athletic also reported former Fulham Ladies captain Ronnie Gibbons’ allegations that the club’s then-owner Mohamed Al Fayed sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions in 2000. Subsequently, The Athletic also reported on three ex-Fulham Ladies players’ deep concerns that their allegations of sexual abuse at the football club in the 1990s and early 2000s were not properly investigated by the Metropolitan Police or the FA.
“Those women were brave to come forward,” says Afzal. “There has been so much silence, and abuse requires silence to happen. There will only be justice if victims speak up and receive the opportunity to document what they experience.”
Speaking on Tuesday afternoon at Women in Sport’s 40th anniversary conference, Afzal argued that one solution was for sport to self-fund an independent safeguarding regulator.
“The reality is that we don’t talk enough about abuse,” he said. “We don’t talk about the fact that one in four women will suffer domestic abuse. We don’t talk about the fact that one in five are sexually assaulted. We don’t talk about the fact that more than 3.1 million British adults were sexually abused as children. Those are government figures and that’s the scale of the pandemic.
“And the sad thing is, the statistics in sport are as heartbreaking as you can possibly imagine. You have the same issue. People are being silenced. People don’t feel able to speak up. Whistleblowers have faced enormous repercussions as a result of what’s happened to them, and all those things happen simply because they want to speak up.
“So what do we do differently? The simplest thing is ensuring that you get your voices heard, so regulation is absolutely key. Having a safeguarding regulator is absolutely important.
“The smaller (sports) shouldn’t have to pay, but you need an independent agency to provide that level of independent scrutiny as to your performance. That will build public confidence, that will ensure the victims are properly heard.”
The proposed Football Governance Bill, which will contain an independent football regulator, currently makes no provision for safeguarding or abuse cases.
(Clive Rose/Getty Images)
