15 minutes ago, benjsross said:

Let's say we do not have the benefit of hindsight. 

A man comes forward and says that 40 years ago he was sexually abused by a man who is now dead. Chances are that probably happened, however there is also a chance that this man a) Knows that sexually abused victims are being paid and b) Chelsea are rich and c) the accused is (recently) deceased and so cannot prove it didn't happen. 

The police say there is no case. 

Do you a) tell him to f* off - where he then could drag the club through the mud in the press (where evidence is not needed and Chelsea are never going to sue for libel). Or b) listen to his complaints, ask if he has any evidence and then pay him a compensation. 

When you pay him compensation, do you a) Let him tell every tom dick and harry that he got £50k without any evidence or do you b) have a very common confidentiality clause in there. 

Maybe Chelsea were "supposed" to tell the FA. Maybe...that isnt very clear, I dont know where that regulation would be at all and why they need to be involved in this. 

And this isn't just the actions taken by Chelsea. It is obvious that many other clubs did the same thing. It isn't great, I would like things to have happened in a different way, but lets not distract from who the real villains are. 

 

And please...the FA knew more than any individual club about how deep this all went and the "whiter than white" image they are trying to present from their organisation is ridiculous. 

I get what you're saying and the dilemmas you present, but it is totally different from what I was saying. Doesn't mean I disagree or ehatever: your post approaches the matter from the point of view of club, my post was from the point of view of a victim.

Just goes to show how f**ked up this whole thing is.

Edited December 2, 20169 yr by Valerie

4 minutes ago, Valerie said:

I get what you're saying and the dilemmas you present, but it is totally different from what I was saying. Doesn't mean I disagree or ehatever: your post approaches the matter from the point of view of club, my post was from the point of view of a victim.

Just goes to show how f**ked up this whole thing is.

If it comes out that multiple people - and I mean 2 unconnected individuals minimum - came forward to Chelsea with evidence against that scout and Chelsea just paid quiet compensation money. Then I will be furious. 

As it stands, it is one man with a story that the police themselves dismissed. Chelsea listened and paid compensation money and probably (at the time) took the matter very seriously with full legal advice.

I would be surprised if it is the former as that time is so far removed from the club that Chelsea are now that we would almost certainly have been praised for going public. Yet with just one persons story they were running the risk of ruining a deceased mans potentially innocent reputation. Imagine the hurt it would have caused his family had Chelsea pursued this publicly and it been a lie. 

15 minutes ago, Valerie said:

Totally agree. I am furious with the catholic church for the total failure to protect their flock, and protect the abusers instead to the point of enabling them. If it turns out the club (old board or not) I love behaved in the same reprehensible way as a religious institution I loathe, I will  be equally furious. No room for hypocrisy. The only proper thing the club can do is fully investigate and bring every finding, whatever it is, into the open. And they should do whatever they can to protect the players, young, old, male, female,  now and in the future.

Spot on Valerie.

Has the FA confirmed that we didn't report this to them at the time? Based on the stories in the press the implication is that the club didn't report to the FA  but I haven't seen any statements from either to confirm yet.

4 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

 

Cobblers mate. The club know the rules. The rules state you must contact the football authorities. It is obvious they didn't. Why didn't they? They didn't want the negative publicity, I'm assuming. Maybe the insurers didn't want more people coming out seeking damages. The insurers pay out in these cases, not the club. The club made the decision to restrict the person from speaking out. In other words, they covered it up. Say what you want about the FA, about the former player, about the media, but the club come out of this looking very bad, judging on what we've got so far. Very very bad indeed. Heads should roll over this, no mistake. This is going to do the club irreparable harm, not to mention the harm it did to the cause of sexual abuse victims, by trying to conceal this story.

Okay DB, let me have my say about the media…

As is always the case with The Fourth Estate, it is not what you write, but the way you write it, and I will take The Times recent coverage [postTelegraph and Guardian's Bennell breaking news] and their catch-up-if-we-can, faux exclusive majoring on Chelsea’s involvement. Starting with the most provocative of headlines, then a sub-liner that hints at successful investigative journalism in action (yeh, right), a few paragraphs are enough to give a flavour of the piece:-  

Dark secret that has come back to haunt club

“Matt Hughes uncovers the concerns that were raised over Eddie Heath at Stamford Bridge, where Barry Bennell was one of his youngsters…

The independent lawyers appointed by Chelsea to investigate the conduct of Eddie Heath will not struggle to find anecdotal evidence of disturbing behaviour…

Heath will not get the opportunity to defend himself in public because he died in dramatic circumstances in the late 1980s - The Times has been told that he suffered a heart attack while putting out the corner flags before a training session with Charlton Athletic - but there was no shortage of individuals speaking ill of him in private yesterday…

As a recruiter Heath was ahead of his time, stockpiling a huge number of talented young players at Chelsea, which was unusual for that era…” 

Emotive words (dark secret/haunt club/disturbing behaviour/speaking ill/stockpiling talent) but as yet neither substantiated nor solely applicable to one club‘s actions, no doubt the media will continue to imply and infer in this way for as long as it takes to besmirch character in situations requiring their noble profession to pontificate from up there on the high moral ground. And should this stance be interpreted merely as my typically tribal-based over-reaction to one hack’s approach to the story, here are a few more sample paragraphs from Matt Dickinson’s parallel piece in the same newspaper, on the same day:-  

How could Chelsea see this as best swept under the carpet?  

“Troubling questions are stacking up for Chelsea, which are very unlikely to be satisfactorily answered by the club’s own inquiry into their having paid off a victim of child abuse two years ago. Did they investigate properly or was it more important to maintain the glitzy façade? Did they report it to the relevant authorities or did they hope it would go away? Did they think of the welfare of other potential victims or were they happy to prolong the agonised silence?

A club might be more preoccupied with upsetting the sponsors. They might not want to delve back into the grubby Seventies and Eighties when they have a gleaming corporate box to sell. There are good reasons why a club would be expected to report something of this magnitude. But who wants to risk having to pay multiple victims if you can make one quickly disappear?

We should note that it is too easy to say that throwing money around is typical of football’s - and Chelsea’s - way of dealing with a problem. Chelsea are facing tough questions about how they dealt with this issue as football tries to come to terms with the scale of this abuse and all those victims who never felt able to speak up in public.” 

Once again, emotive words and inference (paid off victim/improper investigation/glitzy façade/happy to prolong agonised silence) delivered from a position of pomp, with scant regard for circumstance. In short, every tabloid and red top wants a slice of this scandalous cake now that those individuals concerned have been brave enough to step into the spotlight, but where exactly was this broad supportive media shoulder back in the day when these atrocities were actually taking place? Where was the investigative journalism [as opposed to the current bandwagon stuff] rooting out the Bennells, the Ormonds and the Heaths, carrying the banner headline of truth in the rumour, innuendo and locker room talk and demanding that the public be made aware of what was going on, regardless of any victim’s plea for anonymity?

So there we have it, plain and simply put - ‘Matt Hughes uncovers the concerns that were raised over Eddie Heath at Stamford Bridge‘, but, if truth really be told, only with self praise aforethought, when prompted by current events and encouraged by a massive pointer in the direction of SW6 - yes indeed, Matt, well done you! And well done you too, Marina Hyde of The Guardian, the only journalist I have yet to come across who has been prepared to admit to the failings of her own profession on this issue, in a recent article where, under the most honest of headlines, the following two paragraphs stand out as beacons of truth:-         

Football abuse scandal shows media must learn lessons from its silences  

“Historically, many journalists have always delighted in inserting themselves approvingly into the nobler tales of how stories are brought to the world. But we must not flinch from putting our trade at the centre of stories of institutional failure either. Why do we collectively fail to follow up broadcast investigations into allegations of sexual abuse in football? What was it about crimes of the most serious kind in the national game that didn’t make the media cut? What do we ignore in the current era that will seem an unfathomably shameful oversight a mere couple of decades from now?

The abuse scandal currently snowballing began its belated journey toward enormity when Andy Woodward waived his anonymity to speak to Daniel Taylor. That was an act of immense courage and immense significance. One of the unpleasantly enduring facts about our profession is that without a face to the horror, the horror is just the horror, and very often seems too inconveniently faceless to be properly reported. Over the past few years, progress in the way the media handles highly sensitive narratives has been made, but we kid ourselves if we imagine this tendency toward a certain template for storytelling is not still resulting in other terrible silences.”

Never a truer word... and above it never a clearer example of a certain template for storytelling by Messrs Hughes and Dickinson, in a rival newspaper that really ought to be setting higher standards. 
 

Edited December 2, 20169 yr by Dorset

52 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Has the FA confirmed that we didn't report this to them at the time? Based on the stories in the press the implication is that the club didn't report to the FA  but I haven't seen any statements from either to confirm yet.

I am wondering about that too. Nothing to say we did not let the fa know and they, at the time before the stories started coming out in the media,  decided not to do anything more. 

unfortunately  we will not get to hear from the person accused in this, though we can rest assured people that do commit such crimes do have a special place in hell. 

Now the fa is under pressure to act and punishment for Chelsea is a foregone conclusion. 

For those of you who say the our bias towards our club should be set aside and justice must be served then I would agree, so long as the proven guilty are punished. 

If we have broken fa and pl rules then is it our manager who is guilty of this? Or the players? Or the fans? No, it is someone at board level or someone and some people behind the scenes. 

So punish the guilty, fine those persons to the hilt, ban them from working in the game, send them to prison. But any notion of the club being docked points or relegated any number of divisions should not even be a consideration. 

Punish the guilty,  let the truth of the matter be revealed but let it be the sword of justice that cuts the guilty from the innocent, not the explosive that clears all in its path. 

Here's the FA's website page on this heinous issue

http://www.thefa.com/news/2016/Sep/21/reporting-concerns

 

 

22 minutes ago, General said:

Here's the FA's website page on this heinous issue

http://www.thefa.com/news/2016/Sep/21/reporting-concerns

 

 

I am an under 6 coach and a welfare officer for my club. I would say that the training I have received and the rigor around child welfare is of a high standard. 

 

 

I've read our insurance company advised us to pay out and to put in the ndc, surely someone at the club should have had the sense to see why this was a bad idea. But, I'm also not sure what the club should have done. The player went to the police, they sent him to the club who had to do something, but as the coach was dead again I'm not sure what. The fa seem to have ignored the whole bloody thing though.

Feel bad for the ex player if this did happen for him but if he really wanted justice he should have told cfc  to stick the 50k  but he didn't he wanted the money  so  he put money over justice and I have the feeling he wants more.   Can Chelsea ask for the money back since he broke the agreement.   Think Chelsea have been very kind giving him that amount of money considering  the man that abused him is dead and not sure what else could have come from it.   Hopefully  after the ex player has been able to get it off he's chest he can  move  on but I can't help feeling it's money motivated.  Hope  I'm wrong. 

4 hours ago, bluegraham said:

Feel bad for the ex player if this did happen for him but if he really wanted justice he should have told cfc  to stick the 50k  but he didn't he wanted the money  so  he put money over justice and I have the feeling he wants more.   Can Chelsea ask for the money back since he broke the agreement.   Think Chelsea have been very kind giving him that amount of money considering  the man that abused him is dead and not sure what else could have come from it.   Hopefully  after the ex player has been able to get it off he's chest he can  move  on but I can't help feeling it's money motivated.  Hope  I'm wrong. 

I thought it was Chelsea who lifted the 'gagging  order' to allow him to go public, so there's no way Gary Johnson deserves criticism after what he went through as a youth player. He went to the police before going to the club so it's clear he wanted justice, but once the police took his complaint no further he was fully entitled to seek compensation for what happened to him when he was an employee of the club.

Daily Telegraph.

 

Former FA chief approved 'gag' on Chelsea abuse victim

Robert Mendick, chief reporter 

 Ben Rumsby 

 

2 DECEMBER 2016 • 10:30PM

 

The Football Association’s former chief lawyer approved the gagging clause that prevented a Chelsea footballer from going public with allegations he was sexually abused by the club’s chief scout, The Daily Telegraph has been told.

James Bonington, Chelsea’s head of legal who previously worked at the FA, ensured the strict confidentiality agreement was in place before the payment was made to Gary Johnson.

Johnson, 57, was paid £50,000 in July last year on condition he kept quiet about the abuse.

The existence of the secret payment was disclosed by The Telegraph this week, leading to embarrassing criticism of the club for hushing up the alleged abuse committed by Eddie Heath, Chelsea’s chief scout throughout the 1970s.

 

Under mounting pressure, the club agreed on Wednesday to the lifting of the gagging clause, enabling Johnson to go public. He has accused the club of “trying to keep a lid” on Heath’s allegedly prolific offending.

Chelsea have said privately that the confidentiality clause was inserted on the orders of their public liability insurer, which dealt with the claim brought by Johnson, and that such clauses are standard practice in the industry. But a well-placed source has told The Telegraph that Chelsea, who are owned by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, had requested the strict clause be put in place before any money was handed over. Bonington, who moved to Chelsea in May 2014 after seven years at the FA, asked for the inclusion of the clause although it is not clear which executives at the club instructed him to do so.

“Chelsea requested it,” said the source, adding: “Such clauses are not usual in these types of cases. It’s not a road the insurers normally go down without being asked to. It’s naughty if Chelsea are suggesting otherwise.”

A senior legal source said: “There is nothing typical about this confidentiality agreement any more. They were used by the Catholic Church to keep abuse under wraps in the 1980s and 1990s but they backfired spectacularly. This clause purely protected Chelsea to the detriment of the victim.”

Alison Millar, head of the abuse law team at Leigh Day, added: “It is very unusual for defendants in abuse cases to ask a victim to sign a confidentiality clause nowadays.”

Johnson’s gagging clause, made public on Friday, is, according to experts, incredibly restrictive.

Its existence has appalled victims’ groups. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood said the effect of such clauses was “to keep victims silent and … to make it easier for criminals to sexually abuse children”.

Jon Bird, Napac’s survivor support manager, said: “The longer this shameful tactic is allowed to go on the more children will be raped.”

Chelsea had initially denied any footballer had been secretly paid off by the club when first approached by The Telegraph last week. “It doesn’t ring any bells,” said one club source at the time.

On Thursday, on the eve of Johnson going public, Chelsea said that “it was on the advice of the insurance company to settle the claim”. The source added: “It was standard procedure to attach the confidentiality agreement.”

The involvement of Bonington signing off the agreement may cause some eyebrows to be raised, given his previous, senior role at the FA.

Football’s governing body is investigating widespread child sex abuse in football, including Chelsea’s decision to pay off Johnson, and has appointed an independent QC to carry out the inquiry. The pay-off to Johnson may be in contravention of both FA and Premier League rules which state that clubs have a duty to report suspected child sex abuse to them. It is not clear in this case if Chelsea did that.

Damian Collins, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on culture, media and sport, said he would drag senior Chelsea executives in front of MPs if he felt the FA was not carrying out a thorough investigation. “The whole thing is abhorrent,” said Collins.

Johnson said on Friday that the sexual assaults began in 1973 when he was 13. Heath then carried on abusing Johnson for a further three or four years, as often as three times a week. Heath died of a heart attack in 1983 at the age of 54.

Johnson, who is now a taxi driver, said: “I was so young and naive. I felt shame. I felt my childhood had been taken away.” He reported the abuse to police in 2014 as well as to the Professional Footballers’ Association but after failing to get a response, turned to the law firm Slater and Gordon for help. About a year later the firm secured the £50,000 payment.

But Gordon Taylor, the PFA’s chief executive, said that its director of corporate social responsibility, John Bramhall, had spoken to Johnson twice in 2013.

Taylor said the PFA’s lawyer had also told Johnson legal advice would be available to him and that the former footballer was advised to contact the police and offered counselling through the Sporting Chance charity.

Other players have since come forward to suggest there had been long-standing rumours about Heath’s behaviour.

Alan Hudson, one of the club’s biggest stars in the 1970s, posted on Facebook on Friday: “It was common knowledge that Eddie Heath was a nonse (sic). It was common knowledge that Mr Heath was a danger to us youngsters, but luckily for me, he never came near me, almost as if I had a sixth sense.” 

At a  pre-match press conference on Friday, Chelsea refused to be drawn any further on the row. 

The club’s manager, Antonio Conte, said: “I hope that in the present and in the future, this type of situation can never happen. I think the players who have spoken showed a lot of bravery and I have a lot of admiration for them.” Southampton Football Club said they had contacted Hampshire Police following “information supplied to us in relation to historical child abuse within football”.

The club added: “Hampshire Police and Southampton Football Club are committed to working together to investigate any historical allegations that may be brought to light in the Hampshire area.”

 

 

 

As a lawyer myself who has been on the side of Chelsea in sinilar case were a settlement has been made out of court I would say a confidentiality agreement is fairly standard. Theres absolutely no way any lawyer would go along with paying off someone for a claim like this when the police have decided not to investigate. Personally I think they would be better off not paying anything, but rather allow him to go public and assist with any "investigation" the victim desired, its not like anyone associated with this is still at the club. 

 

The sceptic in me wonders why someone would wait 20+ years to come forward with this but thats another story.

I notice a lot of people on social media are screaming out for points deductions.

 

They aren't thinking about the victim, they are thinking about their own clubs I think.

I think @Xfactor has it spot on. Best advice would have been to pay nothing, let the guy tell his story and commit to assisting any investigation.

Edited December 3, 20169 yr by carrickblue
misspelling

34 minutes ago, Seven Times said:

I notice a lot of people on social media are screaming out for points deductions.

 

They aren't thinking about the victim, they are thinking about their own clubs I think.

Anyone who uses this terrible thing to score points against any club is a vile c**t.

1 hour ago, Seven Times said:

I notice a lot of people on social media are screaming out for points deductions.

 

They aren't thinking about the victim, they are thinking about their own clubs I think.

You're right, people are very selfish and they couldn't give a sh*t about this victim, all they think about is themselves, they'd like to see points deductions based on their hatred for us. It has nothing to do with the victim, also it's punishing all the good people who work at the club now and all the fans, it literally wouldn't make any sense.

You're right, people are very selfish and they couldn't give a sh*t about this victim, all they think about is themselves, they'd like to see points deductions based on their hatred for us. It has nothing to do with the victim, also it's punishing all the good people who work at the club now and all the fans, it literally wouldn't make any sense.

Which is probably why they're calling for it.

Spot on guys!

I have been pondering this for some time, and even now I hesitate to write.  But...

Has it ever been divulged what specifically here is meant by "sexual abuse"?  That term seems to be used for everything from groping to full on rape. I am not in anyway saying that it is OK for a football coach to grope young boys, but at the same time if that is what happened, and the public is being left thinking that the boy was raped (by a man who is now dead), then we have to ask ourselves questions.

If the parents accepted 50K to keep quiet about a grope, that is perhaps acceptable.  If they accepted 50K to keep quiet about their son being raped, that is totally unacceptable.

http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2016/12/chelsea-board-statement.html

10 hours ago, Seven Times said:

I notice a lot of people on social media are screaming out for points deductions.

 

They aren't thinking about the victim, they are thinking about their own clubs I think.

Exactly the type of reaction I was expecting when I made my first post in this thread. 

Absolutely nothing to do with justice for the victim, only how they can score points, or rather take them off us,  and benefit their own clubs. 

As I wrote earlier punish the guilty, and our manager, players and fans have no guilt in this matter. 

4 hours ago, Stim said:

http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2016/12/chelsea-board-statement.html

 

You have to love corporate speak. Take away the platitudes and that statement basically says, "There was no cover-up but we failed to notify the FA and we only waived the confidentiality clause when we were caught with our trousers down by the Telegraph".

Headline news on BBC, where are all the major news events when you need one.

Bit weird for Match of the Day to read out the club statement after the highlights of our game.

I would expect it on the news at ten rather than a football highlights show.