The most shocking aspect for me is the (alleged) immediate response from the staff at the time. Asking the kids to clean up the mess, when the thing they needed most was backing and support, must have been awful for them.
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The most shocking aspect for me is the (alleged) immediate response from the staff at the time. Asking the kids to clean up the mess, when the thing they needed most was backing and support, must have been awful for them.
Clubs response.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/...nt-fa-21115990
Strange statement as printed by WOL. There is a rogue sentence in there about compensation that doesn't fit with what is before and after and isn't properly explained. The rest of it is fine and deals solely with the incident, the allegations and the investigation.
The implication from various news reports is that the guardian of one of the victims raised this again (in January this year leading to the club statement in March?) and added new allegations about the original response of the club when the boy's registration with another club was blocked by the need to pay Cardiff compensation. The club seem to have revisited the incident and started a new investigation earlier in the year and are cooperating with the FA investigation - but in the middle of that have left the suggestion hanging that this has re-emerged because the guardian wanted to put pressure on the club to agree a no compensation move for the boy to another club. Even if that is what the club thinks, it doesn't belong in this statement (at least not without a full explanation of the reason for it).
I don't know whether the club responded appropriately or not to the original incident - but there have clearly been problems with the culture around the academy in the recent past and even if they have learned from that and transformed processes and culture (?) the reputational damage is bad news. Mud sticks.