Chelsea sanctioned a "secret payment to a former youth team footballer who accused the club’s ex-chief scout of child sexual abuse," according to Mendick & Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. The alleged victim was paid off "after threatening to go public with claims he was sexually assaulted" in the '70s by Eddie Heath, Chelsea’s chief scout for more than a decade. The payment, made in the past three years, "was agreed on condition that the victim, his family and lawyers were banned from talking about the alleged abuse." The confidentiality agreement is "so stringent, the parties involved in the case are not even allowed to acknowledge its existence." The club, owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, "did not deny the claim that they had paid Heath’s accuser and settled the case." The victim "took his allegation to Chelsea about three years ago." It is understood the club "initially rebuffed the claim, but decided to make a payment when the victim threatened to make the allegations public" (TELEGRAPH, 11/30). In London, Martyn Ziegler reported Chelsea announced that it has "appointed independent lawyers to carry out an investigation into a former employee," understood to be Heath, who has since died. However, a payment "was made within the past three years," and it reportedly is the only case that Chelsea has dealt with. The FA said that it would be "morally repugnant" if any club had hushed up abuse. A former Chelsea youth player in the '70s said that Heath was widely regarded as "someone to avoid" by young players at the club. He said, "Everyone would say, don't let Eddie Heath see you in the showers or get you alone in his car." In a statement, Chelsea said, "While the club's investigation is ongoing, we will make no further comment on this matter" (LONDON TIMES, 11/30).
FUNDING PULLED: The BBC's Jim Reed reported the FA "scrapped a flagship project meant to ensure children were being protected from sexual abuse." In '03, the FA "pulled all funding from a major review of its child protection policies, three years early." An evaluation of the project "later suggested some FA staff had also been bullied into not talking." The five-year research study was commissioned by the FA in '01 to "map the state of child protection across all clubs, and to monitor the impact of a new strategy it had rolled out across England" to protect U18s. It was thought to be the "first sports body in the world to commission such detailed research into child protection." An evaluation of the project published in '07 "appears to show the project met some resistance" from inside the FA itself. It said that the authors "found some staff at the organisation had been bullied into not talking, and that information had not been provided on time or in enough detail" (BBC, 11/30).
