Football coach 'used power over teenagers to carry out sex abuse over 25 years'

A professional football coach used his "supreme power" over the future careers of ambitious teenage players to carry out a "systematic campaign of sexual abuse" spanning a quarter of a century, a UK court has heard.

Bob Higgins, who ran the youth team coaching for Southampton Football Club and Peterborough United as well as the Maltese Football Association, is accused of using his position to act with "near impunity" against the trainees, several of whom went on to become professional players.