Former Chelsea coach Gwyn Williams was secretly hit with a life ban from all football activities after being involved in a racism and bullying scandal.

Williams – who spent 27 years at the club and worked alongside several Chelsea managers including Claudio Ranieri and Jose Mourinho, and helped discover John Terry – was widely seen to have retired.

But according to a report by The Athletic, the 76-year-old was given the sanction by the English FA in 2019 and it wasn’t made public.

The publication also reported that fellow gaffer Graham Rix, formerly Chelsea’s youth-team coach, was suspended between March 2017 and March 2019 while the FA investigated his part in the scandal.

Rix was also hit with a seperate life ban from coaching under-18 girls’ football because of his 1999 conviction, aged 41, for two offences of underage sex with a girl of 15.

He served half of a 12-month prison sentence before being released and immediately going back to his old job at Chelsea.