Vaughan soccer president optimistic with club response to bullying incident

yorkregion.com
June 4, 2017
By John Cudmore

The president of the Vaughan Soccer Club says he is satisfied with the handling of a bullying incident within one of his organization’s teams and is confident the club is adopting practices to prevent similar future occurrences.

Tony Bartolomeo said June 1 that suspensions for members of an under-15 Vaughan Azzurri boys team resulting from a bullying incident during a trip in mid-April to Italy have helped set new practices in conduct.

The most severe penalties resulting from an investigation by an independent panel appointed by the York Region Soccer Association, the immediate governing body for the Vaughan club, were three-month suspensions for three of five players allegedly involved in the incident that occurred in a hotel room and was supported by video evidence.

The Azzurri under-15 boys team, which competes in the high-performance Ontario Player Development League, had been suspended internally by the Vaughan program after a video surfaced last month showing a bullying incident involving several team members in an attack on another teen.

The squad was one of two Vaughan teams in Italy for a pre-season tour, including a tournament in the province of Pordenone.

The team was suspended immediately from soccer activities, but reinstated for play in the OPDL, minus its penalized players, in early May.

The club’s response to the incident has Bartolomeo confident measures are in place to prevent future instances of bullying.

“I’m comfortable with the decisions (the panel) came up with,” said Bartolomeo. “Discipline has been handed out in the form of suspensions. It is pretty severe punishment and is a substantial penalty to those disciplined.

“We are determined to put this incident behind us and make sure that our club, our kids and the rest of our soccer community have the tools to move forward in a culture of respect for one another, our fellow players and our club as a whole.”

In the aftermath, the soccer club has provided legal expertise from Paige Blackman, a former Canadian national water polo team member, to address the 950 players and families of its rep level players. In addition, an antibullying and social medial awareness presentation was held in mid-May. The club also brought in a sports psychologist to work with the team and coaching staff.

“We have put stuff in place to mitigate risk,” said Bartolomeo. “Will it eliminate everything? I don’t know. As a club we can move forward and put measures in place.

“Our biggest concern is player safety more than anything else. This is an unfortunate incident that we had to deal with, but it will help us. It has been a huge learning experience.

“Now we can start to focus in being proactive and implement more things to be progressive.”

Bartolomeo said the club will review its current practices to create a safe environment for all members.

“Basically, it is education, education, education and that’s what we’re going after,” he said. “That’s what we have to stress within the club and our community.

“In terms of best practices and safety, we are re-looking at all of our policies. The biggest thing we’ve learned from this is the role of social media, antibullying and cyberbullying.”