After speaking to the former Irish international Gareth Farrelly about the ‘bullying culture’ within Aston Villa’s youth set-up, David Conn joined OTB AM this morning to discuss a series of revelations that have resulted in the club launching an investigation into the coach’s actions, and removing Kevin MacDonald from coaching duties.
A devastating indictment of the treatment Aston Villa’s young players were subject to, Gareth Farrelly described in a recent interview with The Guardian how Kevin MacDonald cultivated “a culture of verbal and physical bullying,” in which he was allowed to act with complete impunity.
David Conn, the journalist Farrelly worked with in conjunction with these revelations, spoke to OTB AM this morning about his interview with Farrelly, and what these criticisms may encourage within English football at large.
“I hope that this is going to be big,” Conn stated as to whether he’d like to see similarly insidious approaches exposed elsewhere.
“I think that there’s a process even for some players or former players to think through, ‘hang on a minute, we just accepted all that because that’s just how it was.’
“There was this idea that it’s just old school and you have to be tough enough, but actually, that’s wrong, this was abusive.”
Recalling his own whereabouts during the time at which Farrelly was a young player at Villa, David Conn highlighted how alternative methods being employed elsewhere expose any notion that MacDonald’s approach could simply be written off as old school.
“This was in the mid-1990s, not the 1950s,” Conn stated.
Visiting the English FA’s elite academy school at Lilleshall, Conn remembered how young players like Sol Campbell, Joe Cole and Scott Parker were already demonstrating how they had benefited from a significantly less negative approach than MacDonald implemented at Villa.
“I remember going to watch them play, and all the kids were really encouraging to one another,” Conn explained.
“I remember Joe Cole, playing as a 15-year-old, saying ‘great ball’ or ‘well done,’ and really noticing that during the game.”
Concluding that these players had been encouraged to hold a more positive outlook, the stark contrast between this positivity and the arch-negativity of MacDonald’s approach was particularly striking for Conn.
Heightening his sense of dismay with regard to the revelations Farrelly has brought to light, Conn expressed his confusion regarding how Villa handled a more recent incident in which a young player’s father made complaints regarding MacDonald’s behaviour.
Occurring within the last number of years, Conn explained how the club strove to merely move MacDonald around until he was no longer under the spotlight.
“We know that Villa did not deal with the modern complaint properly,” Conn stated speaking to OTB AM this morning.
“We know the Premier League insisted on certain changes being made to practices at the academy, and MacDonald was moved to working with the under-23s.
“I know the FA conducted an investigation, but the investigation’s only role in this is actual safe-guarding, and the actual safe-guarding issue only applies to minors.
“So, the fact that they’d moved Kevin MacDonald to work with the under-23s meant that the FA had to conclude that there was no safe-guarding issue, and so MacDonald could remain heavily involved before this week.”
Outlining what he expects to come next from these revelations, Conn remains determined to get to the bottom of how this kind of protectionism was allowed to continue despite the mounting complaints.
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