Penn State University fined $60M over assistant coach Jerry Sandusky scandal

US college sport authorities have fined Penn State University $60 million in the wake of child sex abuse perpetrated by assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Famous US football school Penn state University will be banned from competing for honors for four years, and lose all wins from 1998-2011.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) said the punishments were “corrective and punitive”.

Assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 counts of sex abuse.

He abused 10 boys over a period of 15 years, a court found, judging him to have preyed on boys he met through a charity, Second Mile, that he founded himself.

Jerry Sandusky has not been sentenced but could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Penn State University was fined $60 million in the wake of child sex abuse perpetrated by Jerry Sandusky

The NCAA said the fines were equivalent to the annual gross revenue of the Penn State football programme.

The money is to be given to an endowment funding external programmes to prevent child abuse and help victims.

“Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said.

“The sanctions needed to reflect our goals of providing cultural change.”

Other NCAA sanctions against Penn State include:

• A ban on participating in post-season games – or playoffs – for four years, including the 2012-2013 season

• Number of football scholarships limited for the next four years, a reduction of 10 places per year

• Football wins revoked between 1998-2011

• A five-year probation on all sports at Penn State

• Adoption of all recommendations for reform in Section 10 of an FBI investigation into abuse at Penn State

• Appointment of an NCAA-selected Athletics Integrity Monitor for five years

• Further penalties against individuals could come after criminal proceedings end.

Correspondents say the sanctions are unprecedented in their severity, although the NCAA did not impose the “death penalty” and close the entire football programme.

The fallout from the scandal has sullied the reputation of Penn State’s former head football coach Joe Paterno.

Joe Paterno, who died earlier this year, months before the resolution of the case, won more college football games in his long career at Penn State than any other head coach in university sport.

He was heavily criticized in a report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, issued after the guilty verdict, which said the highest-ranking officials at Penn State failed utterly to protect victims and potential victims from Jerry Sandusky.

Many of his wins will now be expunged from the record books.

On Sunday a statue of Joe Paterno was removed from outside the university, after it was deemed to have become a “lightning rod of controversy”.

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