Celtic to face Class Action over Boy's Club abuse

I'm aware that this is a sensitive subject, but it's also important, both in terms of how we deal with it and how it effects football as a whole. I'll let the mods decide on the best place for it, but it is Celtic Chat.

I know that the club has been working with the relevant authorities behind the scenes, but personally I think we could have been a bit more proactive about this. We may not be legally obliged to compensate depending on how the courts view the legal relationship between the club and the boy's club, but do we have a moral obligation to do so?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-58802313.amp

 

The problem is if you start compensating some then that could be seen as being guilty which could leave them open to other cases. It would put sponsors off too I think. I understand why people would say there is a moral reason to do it, but I think it could kill the club.

 

Again I know it's a sensitive subject, but surely if its historical cases the current board/owners can't be responsible for that? The clubs changed hands multiple times since the allegations/crimes took place. Surely they should be chasing the perpetrators not the club they worked for 30+ years after.

 

Why don't the victims seek compensation from the perpetrators

 

Very worst if they win the athletic and coy subsidy gets shut down because the plc was created way after ? I’m a right not to clued up


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We have handled the whole debacle very poorly in my opinion..

Certainly over the years, you can understand why if you were a victim of these horrible crimes and breach of trust - you would be angered by the different club argument.

I'm not a legal expert, but the moral argument is compelling, we should have treated the victims of this abuse much much better.

And if compensation helps ease the abuse that was done we should have paid it a long time ago..

Think it was Man City, when they were made aware of historic abuse in their club they, apologised and set up a support group immediately and spoke of how compensation would be forthcoming etc..

It took us years to even apologise, ffs..

 

Agree with JC and let’s get this out in the open and deal with it and put the whole matter behind us .
This has been festering away for far too long , time to move forward .

 

This sums it up for me as well. We should have been far more proactive a long time ago. I get that there are legal hurdles to navigate, but the silence has been deafening, doesn't give a particularly good public impression and is a bit of an insult to the victims.

The club and boys club may very well have been different entities, but everyone knows how closely linked they were.

It's obviously not a simple issue and it's not an issue that's exclusive to Celtic, but it's quite disappointing.

 

Been a stain over the club for a long time..

* poor how long it's gone on being palmed off..

 

The thing that bothers me most of these coaches were pedos who hired them and stein kicked torbett out the boys club and incredibly was back 6 years later and who allowed him back .
The old board should be questioned by the police who hired these coaches and looks they weren't vetted properly .
The main question will be was the boys club a part of the club or a separate organisation at the time .

 

I guess that depends on the scale of the abuse. There are 25 claimants currently signed up. I don't think putting money into a fund for them, as was the case with Man City, is going to financially cripple the club, but I'm not familiar with the legal discussions that have been had or whether there's insurance in place to cover this sort of thing.

We absolutely have a moral responsibility as a club to do all we can to ease the suffering that was inflicted under our watch. It's quite easy to say go after the perpetrators, but they were knowingly allowed to operate, and weren't sufficiently dealt with when what they were doing became obvious. In a sense that's facilitating the abuse.

 

There was always going to be a day of reckoning for this. My only concern is that it’s taken so long for it to arrive.

I hope the victims are adequately compensated, and that they can find some peace going forward.

As for the club? What will be, will be…

 

I believe the club have to meet with those bringing the class action,apologize and try to settle out of court

There is without a doubt a moral obligation to them even if legally CBC was a separate entity

Lime Chelsea,the club is under wholly different ownership and has become a PLC in the meantime but I think something has to be worked out here

 

Can only hope it’s dealt with by both the club and the courts in as best a way possible to appropriately compensate the victims. Absolutely disgusting what happened and should have been tackled head on by the club years and years ago.

 

Whether the club is liable or not is irrelevant. We had a moral obligation to do better for those boys and we failed. It will be settled out of court, Celtic wouldn’t risk challenging it and then losing, that would look awful.

 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I suspect they will settle with certain conditions regarding blame and responsibility/liability etc
would be interested to get a legal perspective/viewpoint on the two parties claims. If this case goes to court and Celtic lose, other clubs could be in line for similar class actions against them.

 

Celtic Boys Club was formed in 1966 with the simple aim of providing youngsters in Glasgow with the opportunity to take part in organised games of football.

Based in a hall in Maryhill, initally the club was run totally independently from Celtic FC by a group of volunteers who were given permission from Robert Kelly to use the Celtic name. Links with Celtic were stregthened when the Hoops allowed the Boys Club to use the Barrowfield training complex on London Road.

Celtic scout John Higgins recognised the potential benefits of Celtic Boys Club to the professional club and subsequently a semi-formal arrangement was made where the Boys Club Under-16 side would act as a nursery for young players Celtic scouts had identified as having potential to make it in the game – although youngsters playing with the Boys Club were under no obligation to sign professionally with Celtic.

a moral obligation is all well and fine, but when your in court wether a civil or criminal case then there is no moral obligation.
celtic did not employ coaches in connection with the Celtic Boys Club.
in every case brought against those coaches convicted of sexual assault none was said they where employed or paid by Celtic.
what is happening now, especially with the lawyers putting adverts in the record is an attempt to pressure the celtic board to pay money out but that would then mean celtic admitting liability for something they never did.
but look at it another way, what if Robert Kelly never gave the boys club permission to use the celtic name and they ran as ''Maryhill boys club'' but ran with the same links, ie celtic letting them use Barrowfield would celtic still be liable ?
and if the answer was yes, then every group that the celtic charity has helped out throughout the years and has an incident within that group or club could then claim celtic because of that tenuous link.
a bit far fetched, yes
but you add in the ''moral obligation'' argument, then it's not as far fetched as it seems

 

So you think, that Celtic have a strong enough defence to win a court case? If they did contest it and won. They could still make a sizeable donation to the Trust to support charities that help victims of Abuse.

 

This is a minefield and there will be no winners.

I think we should have done something, I believe Man City/another club set up a trust/help group or similar and funded it ? But I do recognise that some would view that as an admission of guilt. This is really going to become very messy imo and some reputations may be trashed.

 

this was inevitably going to happen

i fear if the club gives an inch suddenly it goes from 25 complainants to 100 to a 1000 and the club will be buried under a snowstorm of ambulance chasing lawyers

if the celtic boys club was only an affiliation, which i think it was, i dont think the club should be held liable