We must challenge the culture of silence about child sexual abuse in football

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Professional footballers, including the former Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward, have been speaking out recently about their experiences of sexual abuse as children. They include alleged victims of football coach Barry Bennell, who was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1998, and are waiving their right to anonymity.

The NSPCC said a special hotline, set up after four professional footballers spoke out about their abuse, received more than 50 calls in its first two hours.

Ex-England footballer Paul Stewart speaks of sexual abuse

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Mr Stewart, who began his professional career with Blackpool and also played for Manchester City and Liverpool, told the Mirror an unnamed coach abused him daily for four years.

It comes after two ex-Crewe players said a club coach abused them as boys.

Eleven people have contacted Cheshire Police since one of the men, Andy Woodward, went public with his story.

Mr Woodward and Steve Walters spoke of being abused at the hands of coach Barry Bennell, who was jailed for nine years in 1998.

Professional Footballers' Association chief Gordon Taylor said he expected the number of players coming forward to rise.

Mr Taylor said: "We're now seeing more and more players come out and having the confidence to come out," he said.

Penn State whistle-blower case tied to Sandusky set to begin Monday

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To many, Mike McQueary was a hero - the lone member of the Pennsylvania State University athletics staff to speak up in a bid to stop Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children.

Yet within pockets of Nittany Lion fandom, he remains a pariah - the assistant coach whose testimony against the serial predator put his entire community on trial and helped tarnish the reputation of its iconic coach, Joe Paterno.

Educators accused of sexual misconduct often find new posts

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Vermont Academy fired an assistant dean in 2007 for allegedly propositioning a 16-year-old female student in lewd text messages. Yet the boarding school still produced three recommendations for its former employee, and he landed a job months later at Wesleyan University in Connecticut — overseeing student sexual misconduct hearings.

Brooks School in North Andover kicked a former admissions officer out of her campus residence in 1993 after she was accused of sexual misconduct with a male student. Even after her banishment — and Brooks’s $300,000 settlement with the student and his family — the admissions officer held jobs at two more private schools in Massachusetts.

And at Emma Willard School, a private school in Troy, N.Y., a teacher was fired in 1998 after he allegedly raped a student. But the school still wrote him two recommendations, and he later found a job at a private school in Connecticut.

Sexual Abuse Charges Put Shadow on U.S. Gymnastics Federation

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Considering how many medals U.S.A. Gymnastics brought home from the Rio Games — an amazing 12, including Simone Biles’s three individual golds and the women’s team gold — the federation’s post-Olympics glow should be brighter than ever.

A 36-city tour starring Biles and other standouts is starting Thursday in Spokane, Wash. A rush of money is pouring into the sport. After every Summer Games, gyms typically see a bump in enrollment because kids, including my 4-year-old, watched the Olympics and want to do what their new heroes do.

It’s usually a happy time. But this year is anything but usual: Reports of sexual abuse in the sport, published before and since the Games, are reminders that gymnastics is not solid gold.

The first report, published in August by The Indianapolis Star, revealed that U.S.A. Gymnastics had kept files of complaints involving more than 50 coaches suspected of abusing athletes, yet in many cases failed to alert law enforcement of possible wrongdoing.

When is the price of Olympic Glory too high?

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We can all probably agree that protecting children from sex offenders should be the number one priority for organizations that routinely expose children to close contact with adults. Allegations of predatory sexual behavior should always be investigated or at least reported to authorities with appropriate expertise to investigate them. All fifty states even provide immunity from suit for good faith reports of child sexual victimization. What, then, explains the behavior of one of the most well-respected and well-known such organizations in their abject failure to protect young gymnasts from becoming victims of such predators?

Her First Olympics, She Went For Herself. Now, She’s Going For Other Survivors.

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Kayla Harrison looked up at the judge in front of her and told him that she no longer knew how to be a child.

Harrison, then just 17, had sandwiched herself between her mother and grandmother in the Ohio courtroom, refusing to glance in the direction of her former judo coach, Daniel Doyle.

She spoke slowly and surely about the 33-year-old Doyle. She detailed how he had poisoned her passion for the sport. How he had sullied every inch of her life for years. How she had became undeniably suicidal.

When she was done, she turned on her heels and left not only the courthouse, but also the state and the life she knew, saying goodbye to her home, her training gym and Doyle, the coach whom she had trusted unequivocally ― and the man who had spent the past several years sexually abusing her.