Martin Devlin has outlined his own experiences dealing with difficult coaches in children's sport, and has urged other parents to find out what is happening.
Over the past week, the Herald has outlined multiple allegations of abuse of athletes in the country's elite gymnastics programmes, including girls as young as 8 being fat-shamed, forced to train through injuries and verbally abused by coaches.
Amongst the complaints, multiple parents of children enrolled in competitive gymnastics at Auckland's North Harbour club have told of their concerns at the behaviour of coaches in the nationally acclaimed programme, prompting club management to investigate and promise action.
Meanwhile, the sport's national governing body, Gymnastics New Zealand, emailed members this week encouraging potential victims to come forward.
Speaking on his radio show, Devlin revealed that he and his ex-wife had difficulties confronting one of their son's football coaches, after being shocked by the way the man was yelling at children.Â
He encouraged other parents to do the same, get involved and not treat their children's after schools sport as a babysitting service.
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