The Chilling Effect of BG’s New Regulations
Have BG made every abusive club/coach’s dreams come true?
A post from one of our founders:
While my girls were still doing gymnastics at a toxic club, I posted links to a couple of YouTube videos on my Facebook explaining Sever’s Disease. Along with Osgood Schlatter’s, it’s quite a common problem among very active children but most parents don’t know much about it.
These are the post contents in their entirety:
Did you know that Sever’s disease is the most common cause of heel pain in children? It is particularly common in young athletes and can be extremely painful. Children will eventually grow out of the propensity to develop this condition as it is a function of the growth plate in the heel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifnz9639rnA&list=LLGENLOq0bZ6Z_NVMjvZHmyg&index=2
and
Another explanation. Again, they emphasise that rest is very important (as does all the medical/physio advice) which can be really hard on the child, But Sever’s can be really debilitating, and it is heartbreaking to see your child hobbling and barely able to walk by the end of a day.
As this video explains, REST is the most important measure to try and alleviate symptoms. Hopefully once the inflammation has settled down the child may be able to resume their usual level of activity
[this video is no longer available]
A keen reader will note that I didn’t mention gymnastics in either post, although I did allude to the fact that one of my children was struggling with this condition.
I had 10 grateful responses from friends. Their children were also struggling, children doing ballet, tennis, karate, kickboxing to name a few they mentioned, and yes, gymnastics – although, like me, those parents didn’t even mention the sport their child was doing.
So, imagine my surprise when a few years later, after having made a complaint to BG and it going nowhere, I made a data subject access request to British Gymnastics and discovered that the gymnastics club my daughters trained at had complained to BG that I had made Facebook posts that had brought the club and gymnastics into disrepute. The Sever’s posts extracted above were the ones in question.
Why am I talking about this now, so many years later? Well, it’s because of British Gymnastics chilling new regulations. We call them chilling because it is current parents of BG gymnasts who first noticed and brought these to our attention. Several parents have told us that they are now too frightened to speak out, or even with each other, about anything relating to gymnastics for fear of breaching these rules.
The main points to understand are as follows:
1. That parents of gymnasts have now been brought under the “jurisdiction” of British Gymnastics.
2. That it is misconduct to do anything, say anything, or write anything (even in private messages) that has even the POTENTIAL to bring BG or any of its commercial partners into disrepute.
3. That this is retroactive with no time limitation whatsoever.
4. That BG claim the right to demand to see any material, including private digital messages, BG deems to be relevant and to demand the parent to attend meetings.
I’d completely understand if you didn’t quite believe me so here are the most relevant clauses from the 2026 Disciplinary Regulations:
4. JURISDICTION
4.3.6. Each parent and/or carer of, or person who holds a Position of Trust over, any Member who is a child or an Adult at Risk.
4.8. These Regulations shall have retrospective effect and may be applied in relation to conduct which occurred prior to the implementation of these Regulations. BG is entitled to investigate and act under these Regulations against any person regardless of when the events in question occurred. To this end, no Participant may rely on any argument or defence that an allegation, or the events connected to or giving rise to the allegation, has become barred as a result of any argument or defence based on a statute of limitation, or otherwise based on the passage of time.
6. MISCONDUCT
6.2.7. Any conduct, behaviour, statement (including any statement made online, on social networking platforms or on group chat or messaging applications or sites) that is dishonest or contrary to the integrity of Gymnastics and/or brings or has the potential to bring Gymnastics, another Participant, BG or any commercial partner of BG, into disrepute.
7. INVESTIGATION
7.3. The Resolutions Manager will be entitled to undertake such investigations as they may deem appropriate, including:
7.3.1. Requiring the provision of information, documentation, written statements and/or answers, and other material that the Resolutions Manager considers relevant, including but not limited to any social media posts or digital messages and/or
7.3.2. Requiring attendance at meetings to answer questions in person.
This means that BG appears to believe it can sanction or perhaps even ban parents. Of course, unless the parent is themselves a BG member, BG’s belief that they can sanction parents is legally erroneous, but, might they ban the parent from attending BG events or impose sanctions via the child member? No wonder parents are frightened. And in the high control context of gymnastics, even the vague threat that something might happen can have terrible consequences for your child.
And, not only are all current parents or carers potentially in BG’s crosshairs, it seems that should I ever be asked to take a child or future grandchild to a BG club, they could conceivably come after me not only for everything I am writing now, and in the years since Athlete A, but for those Sever’s posts I made back in 2015.
The upshot is, PLEASE BE CAREFUL!
We already know of recent instances of British Gymnastics phoning parents to demand that they remove private Facebook posts, even posts that identify neither coaches, clubs nor even the discipline concerned. And that was before these new regulations.
Viewed alongside BG’s other recent changes and a troubling current context, it is difficult to see these regulations as anything other than egregious legal overreach that undermines the ability of gymnasts and parents to speak out and stand up for themselves.
This is particularly disturbing given the lessons of the Whyte Review which found that BG had been too focussed on pushing back against what it perceived as hostile media coverage, rather than seeking to understand athletes’ experiences.
The irony is stark, as these recent changes remind us of BG’s response to the bad press it received in 2017. It brought all its safeguarding functions, policies and procedures together under a new Integrity Unit, tasked with protecting gymnasts. Yet the person appointed to lead it? No, not a safeguarding professional, but a PUBLIC RELATIONS expert. You couldn’t make it up.
The Whyte Review analysed this all and clearly articulated the dangers of treating safeguarding concerns as a threat to the sport’s reputation, rather than as a core strategic and operational priority. In fact, the entire post Athlete A crisis showed what can happen when an organisation concentrates on managing criticism instead of listening to athletes and parents and confronting the problems they describe.
Yet here we are again, with regulations that appear to prioritise BG’s control over what gymnasts and parents say, at the expense of their ability to raise concerns and challenge those in positions of power. Has BG really learned nothing from the Whyte Review?
We were already concerned that BG’s current safeguarding/disciplinary process continues to give very little weight to the testimony of gymnasts and parents with parents too easily labelled as being, ‘difficult’, ‘tricky’ or ‘vexatious’. Providing more ways to frame parents as miscreants can only make this worse.
Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that parents are never difficult or tricky, but when decades of established gymnastics practice has demanded that gymnasts and parents be utterly docile and compliant, there remains a very low bar to being deemed to be ‘the problem’.
And we can’t believe this needs to be said, but, two things can be true at the same time. A parent can be ‘awkward’ or indeed, a veritable pain in the proverbials, AND be absolutely right about every bit of the abuse they are trying to expose.
But perhaps the biggest lesson BG, and others, need to learn is that ignoring and gaslighting parents and punishing their children tends to make lovely, hitherto compliant parents tricky and awkward, if by these terms you mean to describe the unwavering and determined parents who simply won’t let it drop when you fail to hold coaches and clubs accountable. You’ll find this particularly true when said parents have listened to and trusted your assurances of a safer, better future for their and other children.
We can’t know what was in BG’s collective mind when it decided to go down this route, not least because they never spoke to GymPal about it, nor asked for our perspective, or even warned us this huge change to the relationship BG had with parents was coming. What we do know however, is that this is an abusive or manipulative club’s ultimate dream come true.
So again, we must caution you to be very careful.
You can, of course, still talk to us confidentially and we can project your voice anonymously. We’ll shoulder the risk; I would never take a child to a sport/activity/club covered by rules such as these anyway
You can contact us via Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp (link on our Facebook page) and email contact@gympal.org.uk
You can download the regulations here:
https://a.storyblok.com/f/83342/x/54829ceb3a/2026-disciplinary-regulations.pdf
