“A long and hard-fought road”

Nick Hobbs, Head of Legal at the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, said: “We note the concessions the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) made at the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee yesterday regarding the unfair treatment of child footballers in the Club Academy Scotland (CAS) system. It has been a long and hard-fought road for our office and RealGrassroots to achieve these changes.

“However, we continue our calls for the abolition of the two-year registration in the CAS system – something the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee demanded back in 2020.

“We hope MSPs will support us in keeping the pressure on the SFA and the SPFL to remedy this long-running issue which continues to risk the violation of children’s rights to protection from economic exploitation.”