Dario Gradi, Italian-English footballer, coach, and manager
Dario Gradi, MBE (born 8 July 1941) is an Italian-English former amateur football player, coach and manager. He was associated for more than 36 years with Crewe Alexandra, where he was variously manager, director of football and director of the Academy, until October 2019.
Gradi played as an amateur for clubs in the London area (and won an England amateur cap); he then took on various coaching roles in the region. His first major managerial success was achieved with Wimbledon after which he briefly managed Crystal Palace in 1981.
Gradi had a 24-year first spell as manager of Crewe between 1983 and 2007. He stepped down from his managerial role in 2007, handing first-team responsibilities to Steve Holland, and became technical director. At that time, Gradi was the longest-serving manager of an English football league club. After two further spells as Crewe manager, he finally stepped down in November 2011 to focus on the club's youth system, after managing Crewe in 1,359 first team games.
In late 2016, as the United Kingdom football sexual abuse scandal expanded, Gradi's roles at Crewe at the time of alleged offences in the 1980s and at Chelsea in the early 1970s were the subject of media scrutiny. The Chelsea allegations led to Gradi being suspended by The Football Association in November 2016. Gradi denied any wrongdoing and in February 2017 was planning an appeal against his FA suspension. However, he was heavily criticised by Chelsea's inquiry report, published in August 2019, and in the FA's Sheldon Report, published in March 2021 - when the FA said Gradi (who had retired from all football roles in October 2019) was "effectively banned for life" from football "for safeguarding reasons". While accepting he had been suspended indefinitely from certain activities, Gradi said he had not been banned.