THE FA insist no club will be immune from punishment in the child abuse scandal — as a former Chelsea player revealed he had been a victim.
Gary Johnson, 57, claims he was paid £50,000 hush money in 2015 after he told the Blues he had been abused by a club scout.
The striker alleges he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times in the 1970s by chief scout Eddie Heath, who is now dead.
FA chief executive Martin Glenn warned that any club — however big — would face the full force of sanctions from the governing body if they paid “hush money” to cover up crimes.
Glenn said: “We have the rules which will apply.
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“If they’ve been broken there has to be a situation where, if there are restrictive contracts which prevent people speaking up about a crime, then it has to be resolved.
“The FA chairman Greg Clarke is committed to a full review shining the torchlight into what happened in the past in football.
“If there has been any evidence of a breach of the rules, subject to due process with the police in the right part in this, we will apply the rules from top to bottom regardless of size of club.
“Football is in a very different place today to what it was in the past. Football takes child safety very seriously.
"We had 55,000 police checks last year and ran 30,000 courses to explain the basis of child protection.
“But if the FA have made errors, we’ll own up to them, as must the rest of football.”
Former trainees Dean Radford and Jamie Webb have alleged they were subjected to sexual abuse at Southampton in their teens.
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