Governing body’s CEO Joanna Coates believes work needs to be done to ensure policies and procedures are clear and consistent

A call for zero-tolerance life bans for abusive coaches has been backed by the CEO of UK Athletics (UKA), Joanna Coates, following the publication of an open letter to the national governing body which was signed by almost 2000 names.

British athletes Anna Gordon, Kate Seary and Mhairi Maclennan launched a petition earlier this month regarding the sanctions handed to coaches who are found to have broken the conditions of their coaching licence in cases relating to physical or sexual misconduct, harassment or abuse and the campaign received worldwide support.

Coates says a review is under way and that she “completely and utterly” agrees that for certain violations within the sport there should be a lifetime ban.

“We can make a statement about it but we now need to make sure that our policies and procedures reflect what we are saying,” Coates adds. “Some of them already do, I have to say, but we must ensure that we continue to change the culture of the organisation where people feel they can come forward. That’s what we should do as a governing body, we should provide a safe environment.

“Through the Christopher Quinlan review we knew we had quite a lot of work to do around safeguarding and discipline, especially when it’s around anything sexual, physical, aggressive or coercive. We have been working through that review and we will publish some more results at the end of March.

“I suppose it [the open letter] highlighted to me this nuance around the language that is used, because there is provision for lifetime bans within the coach licensing. Even if some coaches have had suspensions and people don’t think it is long enough, it is reviewed at that point – that doesn’t mean they get their licence back. That’s our error – it is not people not understanding, it is our error that we are not communicating that correctly.”

Coates believes work needs to be done to ensure the governing body’s policies and procedures are clear and consistent, while the launch of a new safeguarding software, MyConcern, is also in the pipeline as a way for people to report any concerns.

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“We were massively overwhelmed, humbled and motivated by the response and support we have received,” said Seary, Maclennan and Gordon, with Gordon having last year set up a peer platform ‘Signpost to Safety‘ which is designed to be a “bridge” between athletes and welfare officers in the UK.

“To see the power it can have when people unite their voices like this can really restore your faith in humanity.”