“Significant institutional failings” by the Football Association meant it “did not do enough to keep children safe” – according to the findings of an independent review into historical child sexual abuse in the game.

It found the FA was “too slow” to have sufficient protection measures in place between October 1995 and May 2000.

It said there was no evidence the FA knew of a problem before summer 1995.

The report focused on the abuse of children between 1970 and 2005.

It 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.”

In a statement, FA chief executive Mark Bullingham offered “a heartfelt apology” from the English game’s governing body to all survivors and added there was “no excuse” for its failings.

“No child should ever have experienced the abuse you did,” he continued in an address to those affected.

“What you went through was horrific and it is deeply upsetting that more was not done by the game at the time, to give you the protection you deserved.”

The long-awaited 710-page review, led by Clive Sheldon QC and commissioned by the FA in 2016, found:

• Following high-profile convictions of child sexual abusers from the summer of 1995 until May 2000, the FA “could and should have done more to keep children safe”.
• There was a significant delay by the FA in putting in place sufficient child protection measures in football at that time. In that period, the FA “did not do enough” to keep children safe and “child protection was not regarded as an urgent priority”.
• Even after May 2000, when the FA launched a comprehensive child protection policy and programme, “mistakes were still made” by the FA.
• The FA failed to ban two of the most notorious perpetrators of child sexual abuse, Barry Bennell and Bob Higgins, from involvement in football.
• There were known to be at least 240 suspects and 692 survivors, yet relatively few people reported abuse and the actual level was likely to be far higher.
• Where incidents of abuse were reported to people in authority at football clubs, their responses were “rarely competent or appropriate”.
• Abuse within football was “not commonplace”. The overwhelming majority of young people were able to engage in football safely.
• While several of the perpetrators knew each other, there was not evidence of a “paedophile ring” in football – Sheldon says: “I do not consider that perpetrators shared boys with one another for sexual purposes, or shared information with one another that would have facilitated child sexual abuse.”

Sheldon, whose review made 13 safeguarding recommendations, said: “Understanding and acknowledging the appalling abuse suffered by young players in the period covered by the review is important for its own sake.

“Survivors deserve to be listened to, and their suffering deserves to be properly recognised. As well as recognising and facing up to what happened in the past, it is also important that this terrible history is not repeated, and that everything possible is done now to safeguard the current and future generations of young players.”

Bullingham said the report was “a very important piece of work” made possible by “survivors bravely” coming forward.

He added that “today is a dark day for the beautiful game” and a “critical moment” for English football, which he admitted had been “too slow to act”.

“We must acknowledge the mistakes of the past and ensure that we do everything possible to prevent them being repeated,” he continued.

“Thankfully there have been huge strides in safeguarding in sport and football over the past two decades, and the report recognises that English football is in a very different place today.”