{"id":97004,"date":"2016-11-29T10:02:25","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T10:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=97004"},"modified":"2016-12-19T16:48:32","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T16:48:32","slug":"is-football-facing-a-saville-sized-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/is-football-facing-a-saville-sized-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Is football facing a Saville-sized crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news regarding professional football isn\u2019t always played out on the back pages of the daily press. As a sport, it\u2019s had its fair share of scandal. From racism and homophobia through to corruption\u00a0and any number of \u201ckiss and tell\u201d tabloid exposes \u2013 the so-called beautiful game has kept PR professionals busy trying to keep the public\u2019s attention on the pitch.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how terrible previous indiscretions (and let\u2019s be honest \u2013 actual crimes), the cascade of allegations<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of child abuse by former football scout and convicted paedophile Barry Bennell could see the sport face its biggest crisis yet.<\/p>\n

As stars of the game like Wayne Rooney<\/u><\/a>\u00a0urge victims of abuse to step forward and stop \u201csuffering in silence\u201d and further allegations of abuse are made against, as yet, unknown individuals in the game \u2013 this isn\u2019t going to be something that is going to be sorted out behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

While the acts of abuse might only involve a few people (although one is too many) connected to the sport, many others may find themselves under the spotlight and facing accusations of ignoring and even covering up the abuse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s highly likely, as with the BBC during the Saville-era and the various scandals involving the church and other organisations, many people in the game will have heard rumours and dismissed allegations as nonsense. Others would have been too scared to come forward, fearing their position in the game.<\/p>\n

Football still suffers from an overtly macho environment. This might explain why (unlike the far tougher sport of rugby) there are no openly gay men in the top flight of the sport. It\u2019s this macho environment where boys don\u2019t cry, nobody likes a grass and \u201cgay\u201d is an insult, that enables abuse to be passed off as banter and innuendo. Thankfully, this macho environment may be about to be brought down.<\/p>\n

While the game is undoubtedly going to torn apart by these ongoing and terrible allegations, perhaps there may be light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n

Once all the evidence has come to light, there will be an opportunity for the sport to re-invent itself and join the rest of the world in the 21st<\/sup> century and as open, caring and safe environment for everyone to enjoy. As football fans and decent people, isn\u2019t this what we all want for the future of the game?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news regarding professional football isn\u2019t always played out on the back pages of the daily press. As a sport, it\u2019s had its fair share of scandal. From racism and homophobia through to corporation and any number of \u201ckiss and tell\u201d tabloid exposes \u2013 the so-called beautiful game has kept PR professionals busy trying to keep the public\u2019s attention on the pitch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":97005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272,3729],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97004"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97004"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97966,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97004\/revisions\/97966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}