Crewe Alexandra have suspended their head of foundation because of a safeguarding issue that has led to the club notifying the Football Association.
Carl Everall, who has been coaching in the club’s academy since 2013, is also understood to have been suspended from all football-related activities by the FA while the governing body conducts inquiries into allegations relating to his behaviour. “This is a safeguarding and police matter so therefore the FA is not in a position to comment,” an FA spokesman said.
Crewe had initially hoped to keep the investigation relating to Everall as an in-house matter but when the Guardian contacted the club on Wednesday the chairman, John Bowler, instigated high-level talks with his colleagues and a statement was released. “You will appreciate that it is not appropriate for us to comment in detail at this time,” it said. “I can, however, confirm that all relevant and appropriate procedures have been followed.”
On Thursday a Crewe spokesperson said: “The reason for this suspension relates to a safeguarding issue which is totally unconnected with his role at Crewe Alexandra.
“The club also reaffirm that, as soon as it was made aware of the issue, it was dealt with immediately and the relevant and appropriate procedures were followed. It is not appropriate for the club to comment further.”
Everall was previously an academy coach at Port Vale and left his position as joint manager at Whitchurch Alport, of the North West Counties League, to start working full-time for Crewe 14 months ago. He is well known within Crewe for his football work in the community and the charity game, the Everall Derby, he organises with his twin, Simon, a former Crewe trainee. His coaching qualifications include the FA advanced youth award and he is described as a popular figure at the club.
However, the news of another possible investigation involving Crewe will be another blow to the club’s troubled reputation at a time when Dario Gradi, their director of football, has not returned to work since being suspended by the FA in December 2016.
Gradi, who has been at Crewe since 1983, including 24 years and more than 1,200 games as manager, was ordered to stay away from football while the relevant authorities investigated his specific role in what the FA’s chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the biggest crisis he can remember in the sport.
Gradi, who has an MBE for his services to football, employed Barry Bennell, the youth-team coach who was sent to prison for 30 years in February for raping and molesting boys in the junior systems of Crewe and Manchester City. Bennell, described as an “industrial-scale child molester”, is waiting to hear whether the Crown Prosecution Service is to press more charges relating to some of the other complainants. As of January, at least 97 people – though possibly more now – had reported Bennell to the police on the back of the interview Andy Woodward gave to the Guardian in November 2016, detailing the years of abuse he suffered in the club’s youth system.
What was never made clear was whether Gradi’s suspension related to anything that had happened at Crewe, or if it went back to claims that in his coaching days at Chelsea he visited the house of a 15-year-old youth-team player to “smooth over” a complaint of sexual assault against Eddie Heath, the chief scout who has been identified as a repeat offender in the 1970s.
Clive Sheldon, the QC who is undertaking the FA-commissioned independent inquiry into football’s sexual-abuse scandal, announced last month that it was being delayed indefinitely, largely because of the possibility that Bennell could face another criminal trial. Manchester City and Chelsea have been holding their own inquiries but Crewe’s decision that one was not necessary at Gresty Road, having initially promised a full investigation, has attracted widespread condemnation from Bennell’s victims and dismayed the relevant authorities.
