Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has urged the First Minister to expand the remit of an ongoing child abuse inquiry in light of the growing football sex abuse scandal.

Ms Dugdale said the current restriction of the inquiry to children victimised while in care would lead to the majority of abuse survivors being "denied justice" but Nicola Sturgeon warned widening the inquiry risks it taking years longer.

Speaking at First Minister's Questions, Ms Dugdale said: "Football has become enmeshed in society's shame, child sex abuse. Once again, trusted people who were expected to nurture and care for our children have been found to be abusing them.

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"Former footballers have found the courage to come forward and disclose how they have suffered at the hands of paedophile coaches."

She said Labour backed a call by abuse survivors' groups to extend the current in-care abuse inquiry to "all situations where a duty of care existed" such as sports clubs and youth clubs, and said the "growing tide of revelations from footballers adds to that demand".

She added: "This inquiry holds out the promise of justice, but in restricting just who and what will be investigated it will deny that justice.

"As it currently stands, the inquiry is excluding the vast majority of people who were abused. First Minister, how can that be right? Please, think again."

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Ms Sturgeon said: "The allegations of abuse that are surfacing now in relation to football are extremely serious and they sicken all of us.

"The inquiries that must now take place into these allegations of abuse are first and foremost police inquiries in order that anyone who has been the victim of abuse gets the justice they so rightly deserve."

She added: "The inquiry, which is already the most wide-ranging public inquiry ever held in Scotland, deliberately focuses on in-care abuse - abuse that took place in institutions or other settings that had legal responsibility for the long-term care of children in place of their parents.

"To widen the remit of that inquiry would mean that it would take perhaps many, many years longer to conclude its investigations and would risk becoming completely unwieldy, and we would be at risk, I think, of breaking our word to the survivors of in-care abuse.

"My view is that we should allow that inquiry to get on with its job and we should allow the police to get on with their job of investing allegations of abuse in football.

"As the police inquiries take their course, if it does emerge that there are wider systemic issues to be addressed then, of course, we would consider very seriously about how that should be taken forward."

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The Scottish Conservatives have said they would not oppose an inquiry into sexual abuse in football.

Conservative MSP Rachael Hamilton said: "Sexual abuse of any kind is a serious allegation and one that needs to be looked into extremely closely.

"An investigation could go a long way in allowing the victims to receive the support they should have been given at the time of the abuse.

"There is, rightfully, an increasing number of authoritative figures and members of the public calling for the inquiry to take place and it's something that could be the most effective way to deal with this in future."

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are backing calls for an inquiry into child abuse in football.

The party's sports spokesman Tavish Scott said: "We do not understand or know the scale of abuse that may have taken place in Scotland.

"One case of abuse of a child is one too many. Any independent full inquiry must now happen and the Scottish Government must get this moving immediately."