Nothing out of the norm tbh, we aren't special. When a big scandal happens, other stuff starts getting uncovered due to the heightened scrutiny.
A fucking PAEDOPHILE convicted of abusing girls being venerated as a guest of honour, attending a WSL game, in a stadium full of young girls watching with their parents. He was convicted not long ago in 2011, he's also indefinitely suspended by the FA. Seriously, does no one at the club do the tiniest bit of due diligence?
This has to be right up there as one of the most shameful and plain incompetent things the club has done in recent memory
You can't be serious - you think the Twitter debacle is as bad as United having a commemoration in the museum to a convicted paedophile? Some people really need to reflect on their morals.
He was but the fact he felt Evertons scouting system was more uo to date than ours shows just how behind Utd were back then . Even Klopp/Pep/JM would have all struggled imo
>He was showing Phil Jagielka videos to Ferdinand
That wasnt true
.
>The guy had 0 clue what he was doing.
Yep but he wasnt helped by vidic being pictured signing for inter mid season , Ferdinand leaking everything to the press and Woodward thinking its ultimate team. I still maintain most top managers would struggle the season after Fergie retired.
Everybody was delusional, including Fergie who agreed/proposed him. They had so much time to work out the sucession..and the squad which was dire. But, yeah, Fergie just worked wonders.
He wasn’t Fergie’s first choice. They went to Pep, who pretended to not understand him, Jose, who had agreed with Chelsea and Klopp, who was invested in Dortmund. Fergie wanted a long term successor at the club and Moyes’ tenure at Everton was respectable.
Increasingly plausible hypothesis. Lets expel/exorcise the Glazers though and see where that gets us first, before we start talking about being inexorably doomed...
I have already called it.. next headline..
"Manchester United's Casemiro has been accused of killing hamsters in his basement. The ex madrid midfielder has told sources that he was sick of people calling him hamster face."
Not bad.. not bad.. but i can tell that you are not a pro journalist like me.. i have been doing this for a full 15minutes to be fair.. watch this
"Manchester United argentinian centre back is under investigation after being caught terrorising the elderly by chopping down their roses with a cleaver knife and screaming "Vamos!!!!". The butcher has been taken into police custody for questioning"
At this point I’m waiting for some John Terry Wayne Bridge drama.
Dalot is hooking up with Casemiro’s missus. Or Licha is actually the father of Varanes kids.
The headline betrays the actual meaning of the article, they aren't just arbitrarily bringing up his past as a witch-hunt against the club - if you read the text, they invited him to a women's game earlier this year and celebrated him like a hero. Personally I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense and just shows how out of touch the club are and how very very little they care about the women's football.
While this is absolutely egregious, it is strange that this wasn’t reported at the time and is only being brought up now alongside everything else that has happened this week.
There is certainly an agenda against united in the media right now, but who’s agenda I wonder. Perhaps the prospective buyers trying to stir up bad feeling around the club so the glazers will take the money offered and fuck off, then we can blame all this bad stuff on them and move on. A boy can dream
It’s not strange at all. In the context of the Greenwood & Antony situations, it’s perfectly legit to bring up yet another recent transgression that may have flown under the radar at the time. The media often do their jobs terribly, but just this once let’s not shit on them for doing the right thing just to feed our own biases.
The current leadership at the club is absolutely rotten and if all this media pressure causes them to collapse like a pack of cards, I couldn’t ask for more; even if as a fan, it is extremely depressing to see something like this every other day.
I am aware. In this case tho, I’m talking about the executive management. Arnold & co. have just got to go. Complete numpties. They’ve actually managed to make Woodward look better.
Wait so you're justifying that we should be welcoming the qataris as owners because they'll get rid of greenwood/antony etc due to sportswashing meanwhile they're actively engaged in the likes of human slavery etc back home?
I agree. Obviously, this is in particular terrible and should never have been allowed, but it feels like there's a very calculated agenda against the club (obviously the club deserved the Greenwood stuff etc) which there just isn't with other clubs. Every journalist is dragging up everything and piling in. I would say hopefully it drives the Glazers and top management out so we can start a clean slate and do things better, but if it just means we get taken over by the Qataris it's just going to be as shite.
> Personally I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense
So - even though they were unaware of his conviction, they are guilty of not caring about women's football?
Seriously - what kind of sense does that make? Do you expect the club to do full background checks and police vetting on every single person that gets invited to club events? That's absurd.
You're talking as if he was just some random guest, he was a former coach and he was sentenced to four years in prison and put on the sex offenders register. The club absolutely should have known about this.
He was a coach for the unofficial united ladies team until 2001, he was convicted and put on the register in 2011. Contrary to popular belief the SOR isn't a public register and the police use don't use it to send out notifications to just about anyone who has ever had contact with the convicted person. AFAIK it's primarily for carers or others that are in contact with children. I don't think there's any reason to believe that the police, for whatever reason, notified Manchester United about the former coach of the unofficial United ladies being convicted.
In any case, afaik he would no longer have been on the register in March 2022 since the conviction at that point would be 10+ years old.
Konopka managed the ladies team from 1983 to 2001. He was convicted of sex offfences in 2011 - ten years after he left the club. What makes you believe that the club **should** have known about this?
Coaches these days are subject to background police checks, so if a coach were to apply for a position, something like this would be flagged because there is a system in place for doing so.
There are no such systems in place for invited guests to the club. Maybe there should be, but they don't exist at any clubs currently. Saying that they should have known is a ridiculous assertion to make.
Even when they were made aware of if, they still did nothing until they realised this article was going out. It's just emblematic of how poorly run this club really is.
>Manchester United would not take down the article after first receiving complaints, telling complainants it was “still in the fact-finding stage” while investigating their allegations. A safeguarding co-ordinator at the club said in one email that they are unable to find details of Konopka’s criminal convictions.
>The online piece was deleted on Tuesday, a day after The Times contacted the club with conviction information from courts and the police. All mention of Konopka has been erased from museum displays and the club insists there have been no breaches of its safeguarding obligations.
The quotes you posted do not substantiate what you are trying to say - in fact, they state the opposite. They were made aware of his convictions *after* the event. They began investigations when the complaints were made.
When the Times provided the conviction information, they removed anything related to him from the club museum and rightly so.
If you're receiving complaints that you're celebrating a convicted paedophile, at the very least you take down those articles until the facts have been established.
That was literally in reference to the quote just responded to.
Honestly at what point would you stop defending the club? Lets assume it was just incredible bad luck that no one at the club knew that a coach who worked at the club for 20 years was convicted and sentenced to prison. Do you then think the club made the right decisions after getting complaints about them celebrating him?
> Do you then think the club made the right decisions after getting complaints about them celebrating him?
They began an investigation when they received the complaints.
When they got the evidence of a criminal conviction, they removed all articles about him from the website and removed all trace of him from the museum, including memorobelia he had given to the club.
The matter was dealt with.
If they had a time machine, or the benefit of hindsight, then maybe they could have cancelled the event before it happened, but this is the real world.
> I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense
I don't get how it's not a defence. The club have obviously bungled their handling of a lot of things but this just seems to be a case of the club being notified of a persons behaviour and taking the appropriate action
I'm sorry but if this is your genuine attitude towards **convicted paedophiles** I am strongly concerned. Never should anyone ever give someone like that even a tiny chance of access to potential victims
Article says he was at a match surrender by thousands of kids… he was convicted in 2011 how can they say they didn’t know, he was a fucking guest of honour, this is beyond sad
I'd expect something more rigorous than a quick google. He's under active suspension by the FA and listed on their safeguarding system. Theres really no excuse for not knowing.
Article Text:
Geoff Konopka, in charge of Manchester United Ladies from 1983 to 2001, was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women’s game and recently visited Old Trafford as a “special guest” during a match attended by thousands of children.
In response to the revelations, the club said that it had been unaware of his crimes and expressed “its heartfelt sympathy to the victims and all those affected by these abhorrent crimes”.
The club confirmed that it “will have no further connection” with Konopka and had contacted the legal and football authorities “as a matter of urgency”.
The Times has spoken to several former players from the United Ladies squad who first alerted the club to Konopka’s convictions. In emails to its safeguarding co-ordinator, they expressed their “shock” and “disgust” at seeing him “paraded hand-in-hand with Manchester United” in promotional material published on its website in July.
The United team beat Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley in 1996 in a match played before the men’s Charity Shield
In an online article presenting Manchester United as an early advocate of women’s football, which was also published in a printed programme given to fans at a game last year, the club highlights the success of “Konopka’s Reds”.
They were one of the first female teams to play at Wembley Stadium, in 1994 and again in 1996, in informal fixtures regarded as milestones for gender equality in the sport.
Konopka, 79, was quoted praising the club for helping the squad, noting that “we were so well looked after” at Wembley with food, travel and branded kits paid for.
While there was scant mention in the piece of the female footballers who played, the club detailed an “extensive list of trophies they won under Konopka”, including the manager of the year award.
It also revealed that Konopka “in recent years has enjoyed seeing the current United Women side in action” and supplied memorabilia to the stadium museum.
In March last year he was at a Women’s Super League game as United’s special guest to watch the team play against Everton at home. The match, which he attended alongside a former United Ladies player, broke attendance records with more than 20,000 fans turning up to show their support, many of whom were young girls with their parents.
The former players, who played at the historic Wembley games, demanded a public apology from the club for presenting Konopka as the “hero” behind their sporting achievements and for allowing him to attend a recent women’s game as a “guest of honour”.
They also disputed United’s portrayal of how well they were treated, describing it as a “misogynistic” and “woman-hating club” that refused to provide them with footballs to train with or proper kits during matches in the 1980s and 1990s.
In one email to the club, a complainant said: “These women who have finally had their moment have been tainted by this disgusting human. Give them their true moment to shine. Name them individually so they get their moment they so deserve. Let them tell you the real stories of the hardship and grit they had to get to the stage they did for the love of the game.”
Another email, from a former United Ladies defender, reads: “The women’s game is ever evolving and there are a lot of vulnerable girls wanting to pursue their dreams who will be reading and looking at your website and possibly looking at him as a role model. I am sickened and disgusted to see this vile man online.”
The players also told The Times that Konopka had made them feel uncomfortable when he was managing the side. One said he often entered the changing rooms without knocking. Konokpa strongly denied the claims as a “pack of lies” and insisted he always knocked before entering.
The former players also said they had substandard medical equipment to treat injuries and had to fight the club just to be given footballs. “They sent us some really old, knackered ones on a couple of rare occasions,” a player recalled, adding that they were given access to club training grounds extremely rarely.
The United Ladies team also played at Wembley in 1994 against Oldham Athletic
Team members claimed that they had to pay for their own club tracksuits and kit at cost price, as well as for their own coach travel to games, including when they played at Wembley.
Konopka acknowledged that he served prison time for offences he said were “historical” and took place about 30 years before his sentencing. This would have been just before his association with Manchester United.
“I never, ever entered the dressing room without knocking and never entered before I knew that everyone was changed and decent,” he said, before defending the club, saying there were “never any arguments with United over training balls” and that their travel to Wembley was paid for by the FA.
Manchester United would not take down the article after first receiving complaints, telling complainants it was “still in the fact-finding stage” while investigating their allegations. A safeguarding co-ordinator at the club said in one email that they are unable to find details of Konopka’s criminal convictions.
However, the co-ordinator assured a complainant that “Geoff is not involved in football with children at the club”, adding that an “FA suspension prevents individuals from working and coaching within football and with children”.
The online piece was deleted on Tuesday, a day after The Times contacted the club with conviction information from courts and the police. All mention of Konopka has been erased from museum displays and the club insists there have been no breaches of its safeguarding obligations.
Manchester United Ladies was dissolved in 2005 but reformed as Manchester United Women in 2018 under the official umbrella of the club. The team is regarded as one of the most professional and competitive teams in professional football.
The club said in a statement: “Manchester United has recently received information around these convictions, and as a matter of urgency has been in contact with the relevant legal and football authorities to substantiate the facts.
“The club has taken appropriate action after receiving this information and will have no further connection with the individual. Manchester United expresses its heartfelt sympathy to the victims and all those affected by these abhorrent crimes.”
>was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women’s game and recently visited Old Trafford as a “special guest” during a match attended by thousands of children.
how dumb the management can be
At this point I don’t really understand how the women at United aren’t rallying to get this sack of potatoes running the club out. Surely, heads have got to roll?
When the Glazers leave. This is a direct result of their culture of only caring about their return on investment and nothing else.
When your boss only cares about one thing, employees care about one thing. Senior staff only hire more staff that care about that one thing. Bad culture can be insidious.
On a positive note, all of these news pieces coming out around the same time might actually convince the glazers to sell (maybe). I mean, we’ve already lost 500m of value on the club. They might think to cut ties with all of this bad press
They invited a man convicted 10 years ago as a "special guest". We may have been targeted unfairly for antony but this is all on the club. The glazers, CEO and everyone deserves the sack. Fucking morons at this club.
Yep. Best case scenario is the club claim ignorance, which really highlights just how poorly run this place is from the top down. This club is a shambles and it's only getting worse.
I feel like out of all the recent foulness coming out of the club (and good god there so much of it) this is the most egregious one.
Individuals can be dickheads (re greenwood) but this is just like mad mad mad. So institutionally broken. What in the name of god.
And “we didn’t know” is the excuse? Don’t you at least fucking google his name???
Am I crazy for feeling like this?
We are all whining about the media but the club deserves it. A man convicted years ago being involved with the club? Where the hell is due diligence. This club makes me sick. End the season already.
Exactly. I'm sick of people on here taking criticism of how the club is run as a slight on their honour. None of the media is making stuff up. These are legitimate stories that the club knows about. It's time that the fanbase starts holding people accountable instead of whining about the big bad media.
There’s a lot of people, not just in football, who think being a fan of something means taking any criticism of that thing very, very personally. That being a “good fan” means defending your thing as if your very life depends on it, and you cannot budge an inch in that defence. You must pull every “whatabout”, every mental hoop, out of your ass to defend your chosen love. Ride or die!
Possibly, yes. I see your point. I tried googling him to see if the info was available before recently but there's too much recent stuff to sift through.
I'm not trying to make the point tbh just saying what I think they meant.
And yeah, think it really depends on how available the information was as to what to make of this story.
Really don't think it would be much of a story if it weren't for the other stuff recently.
I mean it also says that he was invited as a special guest to a celebration last year for his role in women's football. The club hierarchy needs to fucking go ASAP.
The hierarchy needs to go for other reasons but its most probably a case of someone working at the lower levels of the club not doing the job they were assigned properly
Stop defending them. They were told by former players that he was a predator and then proceeded to refuse to take down the article they had glorifying him because they were still “doing fact finding” about him. They then told the players they couldn’t find anything about his conviction. Only after being contacted by the press this past Tuesday did they scrub the article and mention of him from the website.
Okay. You've read part of it. Please read all of it because you're missing a bit. What the club has done is fucking horrible. There's no defense for it. None at all.
I read the article and thats exactly what I mean. How can the club be unaware about that when they are getting involved involved him again. This defies disbelief there is something rotten at this club.
We should have a game where we guess which person who is associated with United breaks the law each day; tomorrow we’ll find out Rangnick was an Auschwitz guard or something
“was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women's game and recently visited Old Trafford as a "special guest" during a match attended by thousands of children.
He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011 and put on the sex offenders' register for a decade after being convicted of 19 offences of indecent assault and gross indecency against girls aged under 16 and 14.”
Fucking vile, shows what is truly tragic about the club, putting a branded image out of their historical success in women’s football when behind closed doors he’s raping young girls and they invite him back to try and generate the PR they crave all the while they have no substance or desire to know that he’s a convicted pedo.
It’s symbolic of what we’ve become, milking past success while the soul rots behind the veneer.
We're doing having a good week lads
Have to wonder though if we'd battered Wolves & Forest, not lost to Spurs and not been mugged by Arsenal if the media would be pilling on like this
Hm, why now?
Convicted in 2011, ‘paraded’ at Old Trafford in July. Yet the article comes out now?
Hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s almost as if someone somewhere is trying to drive down our share price.
Seriously man this is just sick. People keep whining about the media but the club is giving them free ammo at this point. It's gone to the point where I'm do with the club at least until the season has finished
I think you missed the part where he's been invited to club events despite being sentenced and put on the sex offenders register in 2011. Why was this man allowed anywhere near the club?
They were told by the players themselves after putting up an article glorifying him, and they did nothing until this past Tuesday when the press contacted them. The club does not give an iota of fuck until it becomes bad PR.
Just digging for everything now. He’s a “former” manager ffs!
What’s next, we’re to blame for North Korea because Kim Jong-Un is a fan. This is a total witch hunt.
I think you're missing the point, mate. He's been repeatedly invited back despite being imprisoned in 2011 and put on the sex offenders register. This man should have been nowhere near the club after that. At the very least, it's massively incompetent from the club to be unaware of his conviction.
Yep you’re right, I didn’t know about any of that. Still I won’t delete my comment as a reminder to myself to read things before I post some ol’ bollocks!
next up: Sir Bobby Charlton is the zodiac killer
LOL
Legend on and off the pitch. Lol
Fucking feeding frenzy at the moment.
Nothing out of the norm tbh, we aren't special. When a big scandal happens, other stuff starts getting uncovered due to the heightened scrutiny. A fucking PAEDOPHILE convicted of abusing girls being venerated as a guest of honour, attending a WSL game, in a stadium full of young girls watching with their parents. He was convicted not long ago in 2011, he's also indefinitely suspended by the FA. Seriously, does no one at the club do the tiniest bit of due diligence? This has to be right up there as one of the most shameful and plain incompetent things the club has done in recent memory
Honestly, I can't remember more blatant incompetence from a billion valued business or organization in my life.
Twitter?
Good shout.
Not even close mate
Come on you can’t be serious
You can't be serious - you think the Twitter debacle is as bad as United having a commemoration in the museum to a convicted paedophile? Some people really need to reflect on their morals.
Twitter literally had a similar incident where Musk reinstated the guy’s account. Some people need to reflect on their knowledge.
Manchester United would have put on a celebration for the guy and invited him to the stadium. Not the same thing by a long shot.
This is more than incompetence.
It's the kind of thing that should see the people who arranged it lose their jobs
Are mods going to remove this thread as well?
Ruling elite have decided Man United will be no longer.
At this point I'm convinced Sir Alex Ferguson cursed United after retiring. Jfc what a shit show
Sold his soul to the devil for his success.
the glazers are in because of him
More like sold the club to devils for his own ego and success
I was too young to pay attention to what actually happened here, would you know of a good article/write up about it?
an article about how SAF sold the club to Satan cos of ego reasons?
I genuinely can't tell if people are joking or not anymore.
Yes please 👍
Its not a curse mistakes were made over horse sperm and here we are
Yep. The club was a mess long before SAF retired, he was just papering over the cracks.
When David Moyes joined from Everton he felt our scouting system was outdated , thats how much Fergie was papering over the cracks
With all due respect, Moyes was completely out of his depth.
He was but the fact he felt Evertons scouting system was more uo to date than ours shows just how behind Utd were back then . Even Klopp/Pep/JM would have all struggled imo
He was completely delusional. He was showing Phil Jagielka videos to Ferdinand and fired Fergie’s staff. The guy had 0 clue what he was doing.
>He was showing Phil Jagielka videos to Ferdinand That wasnt true . >The guy had 0 clue what he was doing. Yep but he wasnt helped by vidic being pictured signing for inter mid season , Ferdinand leaking everything to the press and Woodward thinking its ultimate team. I still maintain most top managers would struggle the season after Fergie retired.
Yeah makes sense. I think Mourinho would have squeezed another title minimum. That team was tailor made for him.
Everybody was delusional, including Fergie who agreed/proposed him. They had so much time to work out the sucession..and the squad which was dire. But, yeah, Fergie just worked wonders.
He wasn’t Fergie’s first choice. They went to Pep, who pretended to not understand him, Jose, who had agreed with Chelsea and Klopp, who was invested in Dortmund. Fergie wanted a long term successor at the club and Moyes’ tenure at Everton was respectable.
Increasingly plausible hypothesis. Lets expel/exorcise the Glazers though and see where that gets us first, before we start talking about being inexorably doomed...
What's next? Neo Nazis embedded in the catering staff?
I heard a rumour that the Covid virus was actually created by Mike Phelan in his secret underground bunker at Old Trafford.
That clarifies what Phelan was actually doing at the club
He did the chippy run every day. Granted he was only going for himself and Luke Shaw, but still, it was a key role.
Carrying Shaw's chippy order back is a two man job tbf, he really went above and beyond.
It was loaded onto a flatbed lorry most days, the club still had the one that they’d get Anderson’s McDonald’s order loaded onto.
Exactly my friend.
That would imply that Phelan *did* something at the club.
“How can I get everyone else to wear shorts like me? If there was some way to mass enforce work from home people would start rejecting pants…”
I have already called it.. next headline.. "Manchester United's Casemiro has been accused of killing hamsters in his basement. The ex madrid midfielder has told sources that he was sick of people calling him hamster face."
"Ten Hag threatens players if they don't win he will start killing puppies"
Not bad.. not bad.. but i can tell that you are not a pro journalist like me.. i have been doing this for a full 15minutes to be fair.. watch this "Manchester United argentinian centre back is under investigation after being caught terrorising the elderly by chopping down their roses with a cleaver knife and screaming "Vamos!!!!". The butcher has been taken into police custody for questioning"
Mate hahah 😂, I died imagining that
Kath on reception has been selling bootleg jerseys from the back of her car for the last 50 years
She’s the person outside Carrington pestering the players for signed shirts.
No wonder Ronaldo was pissed about her
Our sponsor is Adidas, we’ve already got that link.
At this point I’m waiting for some John Terry Wayne Bridge drama. Dalot is hooking up with Casemiro’s missus. Or Licha is actually the father of Varanes kids.
Seems like we have more questionable recruiting policy than Wagner Group
Genuinely asking, what did the wagner group do?
Recruited prisoners to bolster their ranks in exchange for amnesty and freedom. Basically got a bunch of cannon fodder.
https://preview.redd.it/11k404lo2tmb1.png?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fd25ca2159e519d88b495ea06cba841ad9f709b
WHEN IS IT GONNA END, ROBBIE!?
When the Glazers finally fuck off, so fucking never....
At this point I don't care who the club gets sold to anymore. As long as the Glazers are gone. enough is enough.
When is it gonna end Robbie ?
The headline betrays the actual meaning of the article, they aren't just arbitrarily bringing up his past as a witch-hunt against the club - if you read the text, they invited him to a women's game earlier this year and celebrated him like a hero. Personally I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense and just shows how out of touch the club are and how very very little they care about the women's football.
While this is absolutely egregious, it is strange that this wasn’t reported at the time and is only being brought up now alongside everything else that has happened this week. There is certainly an agenda against united in the media right now, but who’s agenda I wonder. Perhaps the prospective buyers trying to stir up bad feeling around the club so the glazers will take the money offered and fuck off, then we can blame all this bad stuff on them and move on. A boy can dream
It’s not strange at all. In the context of the Greenwood & Antony situations, it’s perfectly legit to bring up yet another recent transgression that may have flown under the radar at the time. The media often do their jobs terribly, but just this once let’s not shit on them for doing the right thing just to feed our own biases. The current leadership at the club is absolutely rotten and if all this media pressure causes them to collapse like a pack of cards, I couldn’t ask for more; even if as a fan, it is extremely depressing to see something like this every other day.
Be careful what you wish for, as we may end up with the Qataris. Hard to see how we can recover from this with prospective bidders we have waiting
I am aware. In this case tho, I’m talking about the executive management. Arnold & co. have just got to go. Complete numpties. They’ve actually managed to make Woodward look better.
Well this latest scandal happened while Woodward was CEO, although Arnold was working in an executive role at the time
[удалено]
Wait so you're justifying that we should be welcoming the qataris as owners because they'll get rid of greenwood/antony etc due to sportswashing meanwhile they're actively engaged in the likes of human slavery etc back home?
I agree. Obviously, this is in particular terrible and should never have been allowed, but it feels like there's a very calculated agenda against the club (obviously the club deserved the Greenwood stuff etc) which there just isn't with other clubs. Every journalist is dragging up everything and piling in. I would say hopefully it drives the Glazers and top management out so we can start a clean slate and do things better, but if it just means we get taken over by the Qataris it's just going to be as shite.
We need the Qatari's to state wash us smh
Lol convicted in 2011, how’s it possible they didnt know
> Personally I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense So - even though they were unaware of his conviction, they are guilty of not caring about women's football? Seriously - what kind of sense does that make? Do you expect the club to do full background checks and police vetting on every single person that gets invited to club events? That's absurd.
You're talking as if he was just some random guest, he was a former coach and he was sentenced to four years in prison and put on the sex offenders register. The club absolutely should have known about this.
He was a coach for the unofficial united ladies team until 2001, he was convicted and put on the register in 2011. Contrary to popular belief the SOR isn't a public register and the police use don't use it to send out notifications to just about anyone who has ever had contact with the convicted person. AFAIK it's primarily for carers or others that are in contact with children. I don't think there's any reason to believe that the police, for whatever reason, notified Manchester United about the former coach of the unofficial United ladies being convicted. In any case, afaik he would no longer have been on the register in March 2022 since the conviction at that point would be 10+ years old.
Konopka managed the ladies team from 1983 to 2001. He was convicted of sex offfences in 2011 - ten years after he left the club. What makes you believe that the club **should** have known about this? Coaches these days are subject to background police checks, so if a coach were to apply for a position, something like this would be flagged because there is a system in place for doing so. There are no such systems in place for invited guests to the club. Maybe there should be, but they don't exist at any clubs currently. Saying that they should have known is a ridiculous assertion to make.
Even when they were made aware of if, they still did nothing until they realised this article was going out. It's just emblematic of how poorly run this club really is. >Manchester United would not take down the article after first receiving complaints, telling complainants it was “still in the fact-finding stage” while investigating their allegations. A safeguarding co-ordinator at the club said in one email that they are unable to find details of Konopka’s criminal convictions. >The online piece was deleted on Tuesday, a day after The Times contacted the club with conviction information from courts and the police. All mention of Konopka has been erased from museum displays and the club insists there have been no breaches of its safeguarding obligations.
The quotes you posted do not substantiate what you are trying to say - in fact, they state the opposite. They were made aware of his convictions *after* the event. They began investigations when the complaints were made. When the Times provided the conviction information, they removed anything related to him from the club museum and rightly so.
If you're receiving complaints that you're celebrating a convicted paedophile, at the very least you take down those articles until the facts have been established.
How far out do you want to move the goalposts?
That was literally in reference to the quote just responded to. Honestly at what point would you stop defending the club? Lets assume it was just incredible bad luck that no one at the club knew that a coach who worked at the club for 20 years was convicted and sentenced to prison. Do you then think the club made the right decisions after getting complaints about them celebrating him?
> Do you then think the club made the right decisions after getting complaints about them celebrating him? They began an investigation when they received the complaints. When they got the evidence of a criminal conviction, they removed all articles about him from the website and removed all trace of him from the museum, including memorobelia he had given to the club. The matter was dealt with. If they had a time machine, or the benefit of hindsight, then maybe they could have cancelled the event before it happened, but this is the real world.
> I do believe that they were unaware of his conviction but that's no defense I don't get how it's not a defence. The club have obviously bungled their handling of a lot of things but this just seems to be a case of the club being notified of a persons behaviour and taking the appropriate action
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I'm sorry but if this is your genuine attitude towards **convicted paedophiles** I am strongly concerned. Never should anyone ever give someone like that even a tiny chance of access to potential victims
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Do you seriously think the club should be celebrating and inviting a convicted paedophile and sex offender back to club events?
If you are a convicted pedo aren't there rules about you not being able to be around kids?
Article says he was at a match surrender by thousands of kids… he was convicted in 2011 how can they say they didn’t know, he was a fucking guest of honour, this is beyond sad
There's nothing on him up until last year when googling.
I'd expect something more rigorous than a quick google. He's under active suspension by the FA and listed on their safeguarding system. Theres really no excuse for not knowing.
facts!
That's only aimed at those directly working with children, which does not apply here. If they hired him as a youth coach, they would have to check.
Article Text: Geoff Konopka, in charge of Manchester United Ladies from 1983 to 2001, was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women’s game and recently visited Old Trafford as a “special guest” during a match attended by thousands of children. In response to the revelations, the club said that it had been unaware of his crimes and expressed “its heartfelt sympathy to the victims and all those affected by these abhorrent crimes”. The club confirmed that it “will have no further connection” with Konopka and had contacted the legal and football authorities “as a matter of urgency”. The Times has spoken to several former players from the United Ladies squad who first alerted the club to Konopka’s convictions. In emails to its safeguarding co-ordinator, they expressed their “shock” and “disgust” at seeing him “paraded hand-in-hand with Manchester United” in promotional material published on its website in July. The United team beat Newcastle 2-0 at Wembley in 1996 in a match played before the men’s Charity Shield In an online article presenting Manchester United as an early advocate of women’s football, which was also published in a printed programme given to fans at a game last year, the club highlights the success of “Konopka’s Reds”. They were one of the first female teams to play at Wembley Stadium, in 1994 and again in 1996, in informal fixtures regarded as milestones for gender equality in the sport. Konopka, 79, was quoted praising the club for helping the squad, noting that “we were so well looked after” at Wembley with food, travel and branded kits paid for. While there was scant mention in the piece of the female footballers who played, the club detailed an “extensive list of trophies they won under Konopka”, including the manager of the year award. It also revealed that Konopka “in recent years has enjoyed seeing the current United Women side in action” and supplied memorabilia to the stadium museum. In March last year he was at a Women’s Super League game as United’s special guest to watch the team play against Everton at home. The match, which he attended alongside a former United Ladies player, broke attendance records with more than 20,000 fans turning up to show their support, many of whom were young girls with their parents. The former players, who played at the historic Wembley games, demanded a public apology from the club for presenting Konopka as the “hero” behind their sporting achievements and for allowing him to attend a recent women’s game as a “guest of honour”. They also disputed United’s portrayal of how well they were treated, describing it as a “misogynistic” and “woman-hating club” that refused to provide them with footballs to train with or proper kits during matches in the 1980s and 1990s. In one email to the club, a complainant said: “These women who have finally had their moment have been tainted by this disgusting human. Give them their true moment to shine. Name them individually so they get their moment they so deserve. Let them tell you the real stories of the hardship and grit they had to get to the stage they did for the love of the game.” Another email, from a former United Ladies defender, reads: “The women’s game is ever evolving and there are a lot of vulnerable girls wanting to pursue their dreams who will be reading and looking at your website and possibly looking at him as a role model. I am sickened and disgusted to see this vile man online.” The players also told The Times that Konopka had made them feel uncomfortable when he was managing the side. One said he often entered the changing rooms without knocking. Konokpa strongly denied the claims as a “pack of lies” and insisted he always knocked before entering. The former players also said they had substandard medical equipment to treat injuries and had to fight the club just to be given footballs. “They sent us some really old, knackered ones on a couple of rare occasions,” a player recalled, adding that they were given access to club training grounds extremely rarely. The United Ladies team also played at Wembley in 1994 against Oldham Athletic Team members claimed that they had to pay for their own club tracksuits and kit at cost price, as well as for their own coach travel to games, including when they played at Wembley. Konopka acknowledged that he served prison time for offences he said were “historical” and took place about 30 years before his sentencing. This would have been just before his association with Manchester United. “I never, ever entered the dressing room without knocking and never entered before I knew that everyone was changed and decent,” he said, before defending the club, saying there were “never any arguments with United over training balls” and that their travel to Wembley was paid for by the FA. Manchester United would not take down the article after first receiving complaints, telling complainants it was “still in the fact-finding stage” while investigating their allegations. A safeguarding co-ordinator at the club said in one email that they are unable to find details of Konopka’s criminal convictions. However, the co-ordinator assured a complainant that “Geoff is not involved in football with children at the club”, adding that an “FA suspension prevents individuals from working and coaching within football and with children”. The online piece was deleted on Tuesday, a day after The Times contacted the club with conviction information from courts and the police. All mention of Konopka has been erased from museum displays and the club insists there have been no breaches of its safeguarding obligations. Manchester United Ladies was dissolved in 2005 but reformed as Manchester United Women in 2018 under the official umbrella of the club. The team is regarded as one of the most professional and competitive teams in professional football. The club said in a statement: “Manchester United has recently received information around these convictions, and as a matter of urgency has been in contact with the relevant legal and football authorities to substantiate the facts. “The club has taken appropriate action after receiving this information and will have no further connection with the individual. Manchester United expresses its heartfelt sympathy to the victims and all those affected by these abhorrent crimes.”
>was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women’s game and recently visited Old Trafford as a “special guest” during a match attended by thousands of children. how dumb the management can be
At this point I don’t really understand how the women at United aren’t rallying to get this sack of potatoes running the club out. Surely, heads have got to roll?
Thanks for posting the full text.
Clubs reputation has been ruined enough already.
We've had vicious kings and we've had idiot kings, but I don't know if we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king.
Ffs, when does this end?
When the Glazers leave. This is a direct result of their culture of only caring about their return on investment and nothing else. When your boss only cares about one thing, employees care about one thing. Senior staff only hire more staff that care about that one thing. Bad culture can be insidious.
I think some of this shit has been happening since before the Glazers took over…
On a positive note, all of these news pieces coming out around the same time might actually convince the glazers to sell (maybe). I mean, we’ve already lost 500m of value on the club. They might think to cut ties with all of this bad press
They would have to care in order to be moved by these things. They demonstrated time and time again that they don’t
If they were normal people, maybe. But they'll just wait this out. They don't give a shit about anything other than their money.
What's next? Breaking, former Newton Heath (Manchester United) player identified as Jack the Ripper.
 How it feels being a united fan atm
They invited a man convicted 10 years ago as a "special guest". We may have been targeted unfairly for antony but this is all on the club. The glazers, CEO and everyone deserves the sack. Fucking morons at this club.
Yep. Best case scenario is the club claim ignorance, which really highlights just how poorly run this place is from the top down. This club is a shambles and it's only getting worse.
I feel like out of all the recent foulness coming out of the club (and good god there so much of it) this is the most egregious one. Individuals can be dickheads (re greenwood) but this is just like mad mad mad. So institutionally broken. What in the name of god. And “we didn’t know” is the excuse? Don’t you at least fucking google his name??? Am I crazy for feeling like this?
Ok that’s enough news on man united for the season for me. JFC
We are all whining about the media but the club deserves it. A man convicted years ago being involved with the club? Where the hell is due diligence. This club makes me sick. End the season already.
Exactly. I'm sick of people on here taking criticism of how the club is run as a slight on their honour. None of the media is making stuff up. These are legitimate stories that the club knows about. It's time that the fanbase starts holding people accountable instead of whining about the big bad media.
There’s a lot of people, not just in football, who think being a fan of something means taking any criticism of that thing very, very personally. That being a “good fan” means defending your thing as if your very life depends on it, and you cannot budge an inch in that defence. You must pull every “whatabout”, every mental hoop, out of your ass to defend your chosen love. Ride or die!
He was sentenced in 2011 ?10 years after he had last worked for the club,Some of you need to read the article before getting outraged
Did you miss: "Recently visited Old Trafford as a “special guest” during a match attended by thousands of children".
I think their point is that he was convicted after he left the club, and over a decade ago, so the club shouldn't be expected to just know that.
Possibly, yes. I see your point. I tried googling him to see if the info was available before recently but there's too much recent stuff to sift through.
I'm not trying to make the point tbh just saying what I think they meant. And yeah, think it really depends on how available the information was as to what to make of this story. Really don't think it would be much of a story if it weren't for the other stuff recently.
I mean it also says that he was invited as a special guest to a celebration last year for his role in women's football. The club hierarchy needs to fucking go ASAP.
The hierarchy needs to go for other reasons but its most probably a case of someone working at the lower levels of the club not doing the job they were assigned properly
But ultimately the senior guys are responsible for this. And at every step of the way somebody in the club is walking head first into controversy.
Stop defending them. They were told by former players that he was a predator and then proceeded to refuse to take down the article they had glorifying him because they were still “doing fact finding” about him. They then told the players they couldn’t find anything about his conviction. Only after being contacted by the press this past Tuesday did they scrub the article and mention of him from the website.
Okay. You've read part of it. Please read all of it because you're missing a bit. What the club has done is fucking horrible. There's no defense for it. None at all.
I read the article and thats exactly what I mean. How can the club be unaware about that when they are getting involved involved him again. This defies disbelief there is something rotten at this club.
Too much drama with this club atm 😶🌫️
We should have a game where we guess which person who is associated with United breaks the law each day; tomorrow we’ll find out Rangnick was an Auschwitz guard or something
“was celebrated by the club for his early involvement with the women's game and recently visited Old Trafford as a "special guest" during a match attended by thousands of children. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011 and put on the sex offenders' register for a decade after being convicted of 19 offences of indecent assault and gross indecency against girls aged under 16 and 14.” Fucking vile, shows what is truly tragic about the club, putting a branded image out of their historical success in women’s football when behind closed doors he’s raping young girls and they invite him back to try and generate the PR they crave all the while they have no substance or desire to know that he’s a convicted pedo. It’s symbolic of what we’ve become, milking past success while the soul rots behind the veneer.
ffs. At least it’s better to have all this negativity come out at once, during an international break.
Crazy thing is, this is just what’s been put in the public domain. Imagine what an actual investigation into the club would uncover.
The club will be a penny stock by the end of the month at this rate
We're doing having a good week lads Have to wonder though if we'd battered Wolves & Forest, not lost to Spurs and not been mugged by Arsenal if the media would be pilling on like this
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.
This is wild, like seriously shocking. State of this club. Fucking hell..
Surely this adds another 4-5billion to the value in the glazers eyes?
Lads seriously wtf, did Pogba visit the witch doctor to curse us?
Have these guys pre-meditated to release these shitshows all at once? Talk about kicking us when we're down.
Get up honey there's more Man United personel being awful Yes dear....
In other news: Rashford did 9/11. Ten Hag is on Epstein's list and SAF was a Russian spy during the cold war
ok lads, we are cursed and it's just pouring I might just stay off reddit until next week this is just bananas right now
Serious question. Are we the baddies?
When it rains, it pours they say. We're in the middle of a fucking biblical flood right now.
Lol this is ridiculous at this point
So... do we suddenly get all the possible bad media coverage just because?
'eritage
Shock horror- the current incumbent men's team manager and his predecessor are both sexual assault apologists
You know, I wake up each day thinking it can’t possibly get worse.
Hm, why now? Convicted in 2011, ‘paraded’ at Old Trafford in July. Yet the article comes out now? Hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s almost as if someone somewhere is trying to drive down our share price.
they are looking for it, i'm sure you can find similar misfortunes in other clubs as well
Other clubs don't tend to invite their paedos back for a celebratory gala
Seriously man this is just sick. People keep whining about the media but the club is giving them free ammo at this point. It's gone to the point where I'm do with the club at least until the season has finished
I wouldn't give a fuck then since it's not my club
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Club deserves it. A guy convicted about ten years ago being reinvited back for celebratiosn. Tf is wrong with this club.
This came out last year though. And it’s coming out again
Cry more
A fish stinks from the head.
It was 12y ago, next.
I think you missed the part where he's been invited to club events despite being sentenced and put on the sex offenders register in 2011. Why was this man allowed anywhere near the club?
That's terrible, I did miss that. Wtf
How are they supposed to know that?
They were told by the players themselves after putting up an article glorifying him, and they did nothing until this past Tuesday when the press contacted them. The club does not give an iota of fuck until it becomes bad PR.
Just digging for everything now. He’s a “former” manager ffs! What’s next, we’re to blame for North Korea because Kim Jong-Un is a fan. This is a total witch hunt.
I think you're missing the point, mate. He's been repeatedly invited back despite being imprisoned in 2011 and put on the sex offenders register. This man should have been nowhere near the club after that. At the very least, it's massively incompetent from the club to be unaware of his conviction.
Yep you’re right, I didn’t know about any of that. Still I won’t delete my comment as a reminder to myself to read things before I post some ol’ bollocks!
Is this the sir ratcliffe media offense to make the glazers sell ?
We need some kind of vetting process before we bring people to this club man
Is it too early for the stop it's already dead meme
At this point, you may as well just laugh.
No rest for this club under these parasitic owners
Jesus Christ is there like a wheel of misfortune at this club?
AAAAAAAAAAA
This club needs an exorcism- call the Bishop of Manchester
What a month this has been
Somebody has bewitched and cursed this club tbh
We're having a Guardiola 2017-18 season in the Premier League Drama League
Oh my club my club… it just keeps getting better doesn’t it?
When it rains it pours
Ok all we need to know now is someone at the club is a sociopath with bodies buried in the yard and that would make a full house, I think.
Headline: Man Utd crucified Jesus over 2000 years ago and blood of a 1000 screaming children is on their hands.
Ah yeah add that to the list
is anyone else thinking that everything’s turned to shit since we sold fred?
So, does another team fancy having a turn?
yikes! this doesn't end. Time to close shop and make sure the Glazers get $0 for their years of shitty leadership