POLICE are investigating an allegation by a former Newcastle United player that he was abused in the club’s youth system and an ex-Manchester City youth team player claims a paedophile ring was covered up.
It means that two police forces are now looking into the growing alleged sex abuse scandal which is threatening the national game as Detective Inspector Sarah Hall of Cheshire Police said it has “now been made aware of a number of people who have come forward wishing to speak to the police”.
A Northumbria Police spokesman said: “We have received a report in relation to an allegation of historic sexual offences in Newcastle. We are working closely with, and supporting the victim and enquiries are ongoing.”
The unnamed former Magpie came forward after other former players including ex-England and Manchester City players David White and Paul Stewart and former Crewe Alexandra players Steve Walters and Andy Woodward spoke out about being sexually abused by football coaches as children.
The former Newcastle player had contacted police to make allegations against George Ormond, a coach in the north east who was jailed for six years in 2002 for carrying out numerous assaults across a 24-year period.
Former coach Barry Bennell, who worked for Crewe Alexandra, Manchester City, Stoke City and several junior teams in north-west England and the Midlands, has been at the centre of the unfolding scandal.
Bennell was given a four-year sentence for raping a British boy on a football tour of Florida in 1994 and then a nine-year sentence for 23 offences against six boys in England in 1998.
The predatory paedophile scouted a host of future football stars in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.