LONDON — In a child sex abuse scandal that has rocked English soccer, a former youth coach and talent scout who worked for a number of well-known teams was convicted on Tuesday of 36 counts of sexually assaulting boys aged 8 to 15, from 1979 to 1990.

The case against the former coach, Barry Bennell, began in late 2016, when Andrew Woodward became the first professional player to say publicly that he had been molested by a coach, accusing Mr. Bennell. But the scandal widened, as other allegations were made against Mr. Bennell, and then against other well-known coaches and scouts, until those stepping forward to say they had been victimized numbered in the hundreds, including dozens of former professionals.

Soccer has taken its place among the institutions tarnished by the disclosure of systematic sexual exploitation, including the Roman Catholic Church, the news media and Hollywood. In Britain, the case of Mr. Bennell came after revelations that Jimmy Savile, a longtime host of BBC television shows who died in 2011, had molested dozens of children.

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Mr. Bennell, now 64, worked for several well-known professional teams — including one, Manchester City, that plays in the upper echelon of the game — as a scout and sometime coach for youth programs. The work gave him access to boys who lived away from their parents at times.