POLICE PROBE INTO SECOND ACADEMY COACH

POLICE are investigating another member of staff at the private academy that employed Jack Peel, the former Aston Villa women’s coach who resigned after being accused of asking teenage players for naked photographs. Sportsmail has learned that Staffordshire Police have interviewed another coach who worked at the Elite Football Academy after receiving allegations of sexual offences.

The police investigation began in October 2021, shortly after Peel resigned before a formal disciplinary hearing at Villa into allegations that he sent inappropriate messages to several Academy players at the Women’s Super League club.

The investigation is understood to have focused on the Elite Football Academy in Tamworth, although the coach questioned was also involved in the professional game and has previously worked at two WSL clubs.

The Elite Football Academy closed last year, but had developed a good reputation in the Midlands for producing talented male and female players.

The company offered specialist one-to-one training and boasted highprofile clients including Aston Villa’s Jacob Ramsey and West Bromwich Albion defender Taylor Gardner-Hickman. Peel worked at Elite while coaching at Villa before leaving both organisations in September 2021. As Sportsmail revealed yesterday the 27-year-old was accused of sending inappropriate messages to players aged between 16 and 18 at Villa, and is alleged to have asked players for naked pictures, commented on their physical appearance and asked them to meet up with him outside of football.

Peel strongly denied the allegations to Sportsmail, describing them as ‘disgusting’ and ‘untrue’. Aston Villa manager Carla Ward yesterday said the safeguarding issues raised by the Peel case needed to be highlighted.

‘It’s a really important issue, I’ve got a daughter myself,’ Ward said. ‘I was delighted with the way that Villa dealt with it very quickly. These kind of things need to be highlighted. ‘Player welfare is paramount, the way that you look after your players, as everybody knows, is number one for me. They are people and they have to be people first. It’s our duty to take care of them. You can’t allow these things to slip through the net.’ Chelsea manager Emma Hayes emphasised the importance of ensuring young girls are given protection equal to that provided to male academy players. ‘What I know is that we have to do everything possible to make sure that the young women that we look after are given the right amount of proper care and attention around safeguarding and welfare,’ Hayes said.

‘It should be considered exactly the same as it on the boys side. We have to make sure that the young person is protected, is supported, but equally that the staff and the people involved with overseeing matters are supported as well.’