Football abuse...

[rusticgal]

A subject close to home...did anyone watch it tonight? Another 2 episodes to air Tuesday and Wednesday.
So tragic to see how this was pushed under the carpet. How many men turned a blind eye to what was clearly going on on their watch. To see these young boys with big dreams, take on the abuse in order to play the game they loved with the talent they had, is gut wrenching. Despite achieving their dreams the abuse eventually took its toll and it was hard to watch these broken men bravely expose the depravity of the monsters that took advantage of them at such a tender age.

[Cherie]

No I haven't Rusti, but I will watch on catch up

[AnnieK]

I watched it last night. My brother was a very good footballer as a kid and played against a team that Bennell was managing at the time. He said there were rumours then that there were things going on that shouldn't have been.

It was a hard watch to see the damage he has done to those boys and how it still effects them so badly now.

Hope he rots in jail

[Tom4784]

It's a vile situation and one that reminds me of the relatively recent abuses in the US gymnastics team. It makes me wonder if such abuses are more common in these teams where children are being prepped for professional play. Aspiring athletes would probably be easy for predatory coaches to groom.

It's just.... horrible.

[rusticgal]

The good thing people are talking about it now. Chelsea have Safeguarding in place now and hopefully this is now a standard practise in Sports now.
The strength of these people to speak out will hopefully ensure it never happens again...

[bots]

there was abuse across the board when i was a kid. The guilty persons were all well known to the kids who kept well away from them. We used to talk about it openly and nobody in authority gave a ****