RANGERS sacked a coach after a boy made abuse allegations against him, the club has revealed.
Then-manager Graeme Souness axed youth scout Gordon Neely — who worked with the Light Blues between 1986 and 1990 — following a claim of inappropriate behaviour. Neely was dismissed at a meeting attended by Souness and his assistant Walter Smith.
The showdown took place in 1990 after the youngster confided in his father – a serving police officer – about an incident involving Neely and the club alerted police.
An Ibrox spokesman said: “Rangers is now aware of an alleged incident involving an individual who worked very briefly for the club more than 25 years ago. It’s understood the individual was dismissed immediately and that the police were informed.
“Rangers wish to stress all employees adhere to the strictest codes of conduct, especially when dealing with children and young people.
“Rangers have not been approached by Police Scotland or any authority regarding this allegation.”
The revelation comes to light as police throughout the UK probe claims of historical sex abuse in football. But it is not connected to Police Scotland’s current investigation into “non-recent” cases.
Star-spotter Neely was one of the game’s most sought- after youth coaches when he left Hibernian in 1986 to join Souness at Rangers. But his football career effectively ended when he was axed after more than three years at Ibrox. He died of cancer two years ago, aged 62.
Neely began his coaching career with Edina Hibs and Hutchison Vale boys’ clubs in Edinburgh.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article