A Goddamn Disgrace

About a year ago in this space, we wrote, "The NWSL is a goddamn disgrace." At the time, we were referencing excellent and infuriating reporting by Molly Hensley-Clancy of The Washington Post and Meg Linehan of The Athletic regarding the league's incompetent and outrageous handling of multiple credible and persistent allegations of sexual and verbal abuse of players by (mostly male) coaches. 

This week, we learned more about the extent of that disgrace. Former interim Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released a damning, comprehensive investigation of the league's actions dating back to 2014. Among the many allegations, Yates and her team at King and Spalding found:

• “Our investigation has revealed a league in which abuse and misconduct — verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct — had become systemic, spanning multiple teams, coaches, and victims."
• Christy Holly, the former male head coach of Racing Louisville, requested a one on one meeting with player Erin Simon in 2021 to review game film. When she arrived at the meeting room, "The coach told Simon that he intended to touch her for every bad pass, according to Yates’s report, and pushed his hands down her pants and up her shirt. She tried to tightly cross her legs and push him away, laughing to avoid angering him. The video ended, and she left. When her teammate picked her up to drive home, Simon broke down crying.”
• Former Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley pursued player Meleana Shim sexually for months in 2015, and then benched her when she refused his advances. Though Riley was eventually fired and the league and Thorns owner Merritt Paulson were aware of Shim's complaints, Riley was hired again by an NWSL team and was briefly in contention for the head coaching job with the U.S. Women's National Team.
• Chicago Red Stars owner Arnim Whisler repeatedly protected then-head coach Rory Dames until the latter resigned abruptly in 2021, despite credible allegations of abusive behavior dating to 2015. According to Yates' report, Whisler believed players had "an axe to grind".

There are plenty more disgusting and dismaying findings in Yates' report. Perhaps the most galling to me is the fact that Racing Louisville, Chicago Red Stars, and the Portland Thorns all refused to cooperate in full with the investigation. Per Yates, the Thorns “interfered with our access” to witnesses and “raised specious legal arguments in an attempt to impede our use of relevant documents,” according to the report. And the Red Stars “unnecessarily delayed the production of relevant documents over the course of nearly nine months, " according to the report.

As the coach of young female athletes, an admirer of the badass women who play at the highest professional level in the U.S., and a fucking human, I'm ripshit angry about the lack of institutional courage that enabled and protected predators. But as a man, I also recognize that my anger pales in comparison to the pain and anguish the women that have suffered (and undoubtedly still do) feel. 

U.S. Women's National Team captain Becky Sauerbrunn's rage was barely contained in a statement sheissued after the report's release, saying "Every owner and executive and US Soccer official who has repeatedly failed the players and failed to protect the players who have hidden behind legalities and have not participated in these investigations should be gone."

Sauerbrunn went on to say, "The players are not doing well. We are horrified and heartbroken and frustrated and exhausted and really, really angry. We are angry that it took a third-party investigation."

Since the release of the report, Paulson has voluntarily stepped down from his day to day decision-making role with the Thorns, but has not indicated that he will sell the team, nor MLS's Portland Timbers, which he also owns. Neither the ownership of Racing Louisville nor the Red Stars' Whisler have made similar moves. [After we posted this, Whisler also stepped down from day to day club operations in Chicago but did not make any statement about his future as the owner.]

Make no mistake, the rot here goes all the way down. Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke had a reputation as an abusive dickhead when he coached in the greater D.C. area for years before got the job with the Spirit. There should be no place in soccer, or in any game, for predatory, abusive, ego-driven assholes. The protections in place are not enough. Until the sport's leaders - men and women (Lisa Baird, the former commissioner of the NWSL was conspicuous in her dereliction) - begin to not only believe women but put their safety over profit and power, the NWSL will remain nothing more than a cautionary tale. 

It could be so much more.