Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Paris 2024 & Crewe Alexandra
Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.
HIT – PARIS 2024
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has underlined its firm stance on global climate issues in recent years.
As well as including sustainability as one of the three key pillars of Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s revised bidding process – released in 2018 – asked interested cities to devise bids aligned with their “long-term development goals and sustainability challenges”.
While it can be easy to communicate the right things without taking decisive action, it seems that host cities are listening and the Paris 2024 Board of Directors recently approved the Games’ climate strategy.
The result is that the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games has committed to becoming climate positive, a world’s first for a sports event.
“The strategy is based on a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, support for projects with a positive contribution to climate, and mobilisation of stakeholders to maximise long-term positive impact,” read the press release from the Paris 2024 communications team.
“Paris 2024’s primary objective is to prevent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to the event. This will be achieved through: a cost-effective and compact venue concept (95% of venues are existing or temporary), the inclusion of low-carbon solutions for all activities within the venues, the use of renewable energy for all venues which will all be accessible by public transport, a sustainable catering plan, a responsible digital plan, the use of low-carbon temporary equipment, and a reliance on principles of the circular economy.
“The Paris 2024 Board of Directors has secured the carbon neutrality of the Games as early as three years prior to the Games, and will now take its commitment to protecting the climate one step further.
“Paris 2024 will offset more emissions than it will create by supporting projects in France which are still emerging. Paris 2024 will contribute to the development of local projects, that are essential in the fight against climate change, and which provide other benefits such as protecting biodiversity or improving citizens’ quality of life.”
In total, Paris 2024 will reduce emissions linked to the event by 50% when compared to previous editions of the Games.
Together with the IOC, Paris 2024 is also working internationally with the United Nations (UN) as part of the “Sports for Climate Action” initiative to raise awareness and incite action among the global sports community.
Niclas Svenningsen, Manager for Global Climate Action, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) commented: “Through their new climate
action strategy, Paris 2024 is sending a strong signal to the world about the importance of ambitious and inclusive climate action.
“It is a signal of leadership that the city, where the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was adopted in 2015, is now also hosting the first ever climate positive Olympic Games.”
The IOC’s Head of Sustainability, Michelle Lemaitre, has previously explained why the organisation has put so much focus on the role of host cities
“What we want is for cities to articulate a long-term ambition and ask how they can leverage the Games to respond to that,” Lemaitre said in an interview with The Sustainability Report.
“It’s not how the Games can fix that problem, but how they can contribute to that vision.
It is clear that we are at a tipping point around the globe and significant action must be taken to ensure that future generations are protected against the rapidly changing climate.
Hosting an Olympic and Paralympic Games has at times been seen as an expensive and disruptive business in the past, but a renewed commitment to creating positive long-term change can only benefit host cities and its people.
This announcement by Paris 2024 should force other major sporting event hosts into action and ensure that sustainability becomes a core pillar of global competitions in the future.
MISS – CREWE ALEXANDRA
The conviction of former Crewe Alexandra football coach Barry Bennell three years ago prompted a greater focus on the vulnerabilities young people face in the game and exposed the scale of sexual abuse that has damaged the lives of so many young people.
Bennell was jailed for 31 years at Liverpool Crown Court in 2018 for 50 counts of child sexual abuse and was described as the "devil incarnate" by the judge after being convicted of abusing 12 boys aged eight to 15 between 1979 and 1991.
He was given a fifth jail term after pleading guilty to further offences in 2020.
When the scale of the scandal became clear, the Football Association (FA) announced an independent inquiry into child sex abuse between 1970 and 2005, led by Clive Sheldon QC, which reported its findings last week.
It offered a damning indictment of the lack of safeguarding in the game and said: “The FA acted far too slowly to introduce appropriate and sufficient child protection measures, and to ensure that safeguarding was taken sufficiently seriously by those involved in the game. These are significant institutional failings for which there is no excuse.”
The report also criticised Crewe Alexandra for its failure to do more to safeguard young people, pointing the finger particularly at the club’s Board and said: “Based on all of the evidence received by the Review, however, I consider it likely that three Directors of the Club (Crewe Alexandra) discussed concerns about Bennell which hinted at his sexual interest in children.
“As a result of these concerns, the club’s then chairman sought further information about Bennell from Manchester City, and was told by a senior police officer to keep a “watching brief” on the situation. There is no evidence that the chairman did so.”
When you are facing a crisis or aware of a situation where you are going to have the reputation of your organisation brought into question, you need to be prepared.
There’s no excuse for a professional sports organisation to take more than 24 hours to respond to such a damning and damaging report.
When Crewe did finally issue a statement, they said: “The club wishes to make it absolutely clear that it sincerely regrets and is disgusted by the terrible crimes committed by Mr Bennell upon many young footballers over a significant number of years. The despicable abuse committed by Mr Bennell was abhorrent and the club continues to have the deepest sympathy for the victims and survivors of Mr Bennell.
"The club acknowledges however that improvements to safeguarding can always be made and the club accepts the recommendations made by Clive Sheldon QC to ensure our safeguarding procedures remain as robust as possible.
"The club also acknowledges the contributions made by all individuals to the report of Clive Sheldon QC and reiterates its deepest sympathy to all those victims and survivors of Mr Bennell.”
Crewe should be liaising with affected players and relevant stakeholders such as the FA and the Offside Trust, founded and run by survivors of child sexual abuse in sport.
While they have reached financial settlements with a number of former players who were abused by Bennell, those settlements have never included direct personal apologies from the club to the survivor for the abuse they suffered, unlike those reached by Manchester City, who also employed Bennell.
This prompted the Offside Trust to express reservations about Crewe’s statement: “Crewe’s belated statement is welcomed ‘if’ it is indeed sincere.
“We are pleased to see the club finally say ‘sorry’, shame it has been delivered in such cold, mealy-mouthed, legalistic fashion.
“The emphasis on their lack of culpability makes it sound almost begrudging.
“John Bowler is STILL chairman of #CreweAlex? The board includes his son and others related to those in charge in 1980s? No chance of change if club remains in same questionable hands. Maybe fans, MPs, @EFL and @FA could join our call for change.”
Dario Gradi, the former long-standing Crewe manager, also issued a statement, given that Bennell was at the club at the same time as him.
Gradi said: “Following the conclusion of the Independent Review into Child Sexual Abuse in football I wish to express my deepest sympathy for the survivors and their families. I sincerely and personally regret that the harm being caused to these young people was not discovered at the time. I apologise for not recognising any signs of abuse at the time.
“I spent my entire football career seeking to successfully advance and nurture the football skills of children in what I thought was a personal caring way.
“I am of course satisfied with the findings of the Review in which it is acknowledged by Clive Sheldon QC that I did not act improperly towards children at any time and that I was unaware of the unlawful activities of Barry Bennell.
“We now live in very different times and education and information regarding risk to young persons has significantly advanced but I welcome the recommendations of The Review.
“It is however disappointing that certain sections of the Review’s report have been taken out of context by the media in a series of sound bytes.
“I am also disappointed by the Football Association’s public declaration that I am currently banned from football and ‘effectively banned from football for life’. This has since been reiterated in the media in which the FA Chief Executive states that I am banned from all football-related activity. I would like to make it clear that this is not the case. I am suspended indefinitely from certain specified activities with players under the age of 18 years and whilst I do not agree with it, I understand how the decision was arrived at.”
The Offside Trust later called for Gradi to lose his MBE and also criticised the FA for failing to implement practical changes to safeguard young people a long time ago.
“The FA should have immediately made these most basic of changes around training, awareness, spot checks and transparency without waiting for a 700 page report. The fact that they didn't speaks volumes about how far from reality the FA has been in this process.
“Most of the recommendations are things that have already been in place within other sports bodies (such as the RFU) for several years. It is shocking that we have had to wait nearly five years to have someone suggest that a bit of safeguarding training every three years might be a good idea. It is disappointing not to see anything stronger in terms of mandatory reporting.”
If the speed with which Crewe dealt with the latest chapter of this crisis wasn’t bad enough, their subsequent actions gave the impression of an attempt to suppress the reporting of their manager David Artell’s comments at his weekly press briefing and have done serious damage to their already tattered reputation.
Artell explained why Crewe had taken so long to issue a response: “I’m not sure of the reasons it didn’t happen earlier. But I know it was important for the football club to say sorry after the report concluded and what it said in the findings.”
Soon after the press conference finished, attending reporters were contacted by the club and told that future Zoom interviews could be cancelled if Artell’s comments “go national.”
The FA issued its own statement with CEO Mark Bullingham admitting that more should have been done.
He said: “To English football, I say. This has to be a critical moment for us. We must do everything we can to ensure that we learn the lessons, and never see a repeat of this abuse.
“It is clear they were let down by the game, the authorities and society as a whole. We all failed to protect them.
“The report is clear that safeguarding risks were not understood prior to the mid 90s by either sports or society. However, more should have been done, more quickly, after sexual abuse cases came to light. As with most sports in this country, the FA was too slow to act.
“The report recognises the FA made progress after 2000 and that the Independent Football Commission reviewed safeguarding standards in 2005, concluding that the FA’s achievement in this area was impressive. However, it is clearly unacceptable that the correct protocols were not in place before then.”