Can we talk about the football sex abuse scandal?

[DeviTheGaelet]

Headline news today, NSPCC are setting up a helpline, talk that it was organised and likely to be on the same scale as Saville.

I can't think of another occasion where sex abuse has been reported on so much. I also think sex abuse/grooming was rife in the 80s/90s, I can think of several coaches that have been jailed but not of a story as big as this. Also, other grooming rings e.g. Rotherham haven't resulted in NSPCC helplines I don't think.

Is it that we are becoming more intolerant of sex abuse?
Is it topical because of Saville?
Is it magnified because everything to do with football gets generally over reported anyway?
Is it taken more seriously because primarily boys now men were affected? (I also think gender may have played a part in why "Nick" was taken so seriously in the children's home allegations).
I've posted in feminism because of the gender angle but interested in any thoughts (including being told IABU)

Treated worse? Some of these young lads reported it then were gagged by confidentiality clauses. So their parents knew, the club knew the police knew but nothing was done about it. How is that better treatment??!!

Your deluded and warped.

Am not saying all women are 'wingeing' about it, because they certainly are not. This is the only thing I've seen. Written by a few warped individuals that are harbouring a lot of hate.

All feminists do not think like you. Thank fuck!

I think human nature is such that for men a woman being raped is an awful crime, but a man being raped - it could happen to them and that in itself makes it alarming & shocking.

It's not right or wrong, one crime isn't worse than the other, it's just as I perceive how many men feel as they realise they are or could have been vulnerable.

This thread basically about 'that child got better treated when raped than this child' (even though when both were originally reported both to told to STFU.

This is not feminism to me. My feminism is looking to to the future and making sure the present and future is changed so my girls are free not getting twisted over tv reports of which children got better treatment when they had been raped.

I was abused when I was child and I actually feel it repulsive that you are using this dreadful issue as a stepping stone to push forward feminism.

This is an interesting thread. I don't think jimmy saville got less coverage actually, but there hasn't been the questioning of the motives of the victims in this scandal that there was there. However there is a different kind of prejudice (if that's the right word) in the sense that football is tied up with all kind of ideas of masculinity and it seems a lot of people (Eric Bristow for example) who think being a victim of abuse, or not "sorting it out" yourself is somehow not masculine. I was reading about Gary Speed and whether he was potentially a victim and apparently his father said "Gary wouldn't have stood for it". Basically a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of sexual abuse.

Potnoodle, how can we change things if we are not allowed to identify the problem?

This is one of the reasons that child sexual abuse is cloaked in secrecy. If anyone makes a perfectly reasoned and intelligent analysis of the media reporting of it, they get called 'vile' and 'repulsive'. It is a silencing tactic.

You seem to be saying that it is true that the girls in the Rochdale case were treated poorly by the media, and that the men in the football abuse scandal are hailed as 'brave' by that same media but that we should not talk about the truth. That talking about the truth harms victims. It does not. Not talking about the truth harms victims.

People are questioning the footballers motives less because footballers are percieved as being wealthy and not in need of money. Many people think survivors of abuse only disclose in the hope of financial compensation.

The footballers are not seen as having anything to gain by disclosing, in fact they ran they very real risk of being shunned in football circles, scorned by fans and silenced by wealthy people who have a vested interest in keeping abuse in football under wraps.

And let's not forget, the footballer who first talked publicly was talking about abuse which had been dealt with by the courts many years ago (I think he was in his thirties when he reported it) but which he had felt compelled to remain silent about for another 10 years or do. We should see it as a positive thing that survivors feel they can go public now.

Good analysis tinkly