Ireland's women’s football manager Vera Pauw received an apology from the Dutch football association after she revealed she was raped by a football official as a young player.
KNVB said it is sorry that Ms Pauw did not have a safe working environment and for the impact that it the sexual abuse has caused her.
Ms Pauw (59), who is originally from Holland, revealed she was raped by a “prominent football official” 35 years ago.
She also said she suffered two other sexual assaults by two different men employed within Dutch football.
KNVB said an investigation was conducted by independent research agency, Verinorm, at Ms Pauw’s request last year.
In a statement, it said: “At the KNVB we are very shocked by the experiences from a not recent past that Vera Pauw told us about in a conversation last year.
“The KNVB should have approached a number of issues differently.
“For example, in the past Vera was unfortunately confronted with a number of (estimation) errors and harmful comments from (former) KNVB employees.
“Verinorm has also found through the investigation that there was no plan or policy of the KNVB behind this.”
The Dutch football association admitted that it “was not sufficiently alert to Vera’s first signals in 2011 about sexually transgressive behaviour”.
The statement added: “The report states that these signals were veiled, but that should not be an excuse if such a theme comes up in any way.
“The KNVB did not react sharply enough to this at the time.
“We acknowledge the errors identified in the report and should not have happened to her.”
KNVB apologised to Ms Pauw for failing to ensure she had a safe working environment and for the impact of the sexual abuse had on her life.
It said: “It is unacceptable that Vera did not experience the safe working environment to which she was entitled at the time.
“In personal contact with Vera, we have experienced that this situation unfortunately has a lot of impact on her and we are sorry for that.
“We want to discuss the recommendations from the report internally and with Vera as soon as possible, but very carefully so that we can take action. Also with a view to recovery mediation.”
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