BBC investigates football child abuse

UK pubcaster the BBC has commissioned two docuseries and four one-off films as part of its latest documentary slate, including a programme about historical child abuse in English football.

Clare Sillery

Docuseries Football’s Darkest Secret is a three-parter commissioned for BBC1 and VoD platform iPlayer. Directed by Daniel Gordon (Hillsborough), the series will examine abuse that took place in youth football all across England from the 1970s to 1990s.

Football’s Darkest Secret is a coproduction between Insight TWI, Passion Pictures and VeryMuchSo, in association with Ventureland. Exec producing are Passion co-founder John Battsek, Insight founder Ron McCullagh and Steve Boulton. High Davies is the producer.

The second docuseries is climate change project Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World (working title). The three-part series, commissioned for BBC1 and iPlayer, follows environmental activist Thunberg as she travels around the world to raise awareness of climate change and encourage people to act to reduce carbon emissions.

The programme began filming in 2019 and is made by BBC Studios Production in association with B-Reel Films, in coproduction with US pubcaster PBS. Rob Liddel is the exec producer.

Meanwhile, Our Family & Autism (w/t) is a one-off doc for BBC1 and iPlayer that follows actor and presenter Paddy McGuinness (Take Me Out) and his family, after three of his children were diagnosed with autism.

Produced by Raw, the prodco behind Chris Packham: Asperger’s & Me and Nadiya Hussain: Anxiety & Me, the doc is directed by Lucy Wilcox, with Raw’s Tom Barry exec producing.

The final project commissioned for BBC1 and iPlayer is Our International NHS, a one-hour special in which presenter and historian David Olusoga celebrates the immigrant workforce of the NHS.

The doc is produced by Uplands Production and exec produced by Charlotte Sacher, Mike Smith and Olusoga. Tim Kirby is director and producer.

Commissioned for digital channel BBC3 is Bad Influencer (w/t), a 1×60’ doc documenting the rise and fall of one of Instagram’s first super-influencers, Belle Gibson.

The Australian wellness guru cultivated a global online following by feigning that she had cured her own terminal cancer by eating a plant-based diet and using alternative therapies. After scoring a lucrative publishing deal and winning various awards, it emerged Gibson had never had cancer.

Minnow Films is producing the doc, which is exec produced by the prodco’s head of documentaries, Grace Reynolds, and directed by Ziyaad Desai.

Also for BBC3, and the last project on the pubcaster’s latest slate, is Gambling: When Our Fun Stopped (w/t), a 1×60’ doc telling the stories of young men whose lives have been deeply affected by addiction to gambling.

Blakeway North is producing the doc, which is exec produced by the prodco’s Fran Baker and directed by Candace Davies.

Clare Sillery, head of commissioning for documentaries at the BBC, said: “In these extraordinary and often divided times, it is more important than ever for us to be telling powerful, timely stories that offer different perspectives on the human experience.

“The documentaries I am announcing today demonstrate my ambition to grow and support the very best directing talent to make purposeful films that help us better understand the world in which we live. I’m very grateful to all those taking part for sharing their stories with us.”