Southampton Football Club "deeply sorry" for failings that allowed youth coach to abuse children

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Southampton Football Club today admitted there were "considerable failings" that allowed a youth coach to abuse young children in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. To the victims, it said it was "deeply sorry".

Bob Higgins was jailed in 2019 for indecent assaults on 24 victims, including at Southampton, between 1971 and 1996. He was seen by both children and parents as the man who could make careers happen.

The club statement was released as an Independent Review into Child Sexual Abuse in Football was published by the Football Association.

It said:

The FA failed to ban two of the most notorious perpetrators of child sexual abuse - Barry Bennell and Bob Higgins - from involvement in football.

Following high profile convictions of child sexual abusers up to May 2000 the FA could and should have done more to keep children safe. And where incidents of abuse were reported to people in authority at football clubs, their responses were "rarely competent or appropriate".  

An independent review - looking at what happened at Southampton - is still ongoing.