The National Women’s Soccer League and the U.S. Soccer Federation. A High-Sensitivity Investigation into Player Sexual Abuse and Missing Energy

The report, led by former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates and released Monday, was based on more than 200 interviews and reveals the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) under the US Soccer Federation (USSF) failed to provide a safe environment for players.

The report also raises the question of whether some team owners should be disciplined or forced to sell their teams, as it recommended the league “determine whether disciplinary action is appropriate for any of these owners or team executives.”

“We have worked hard every day since then to ensure a safe environment that puts players in a position to succeed. This includes implementation of club-wide anonymous reporting services and a re-evaluated hiring process for staff.”

The report concludes that “Dames created a sexualized team environment and verbally and emotionally abused players and staff,” and allegedly “made inappropriate sexual and suggestive remarks to youth female players, asked about their boyfriends and sex lives, and sought information about their personal lives.”

The owners of the Portland Thorns and the Chicago Red Stars, both members of the National Women’s Soccer League, decided to step aside from their clubs as the league and the players union conducted a joint investigation.

But it was clear the problems were widespread. Five of the 10 head coaches in the NWSL last season either were fired or stepped down amid allegations of misconduct.

“In general, teams, the NWSL, and USSF appear to have prioritized concerns of legal exposure to litigation by coaches—and the risk of drawing negative attention to the team or League—over player safety and well-being,” the report noted.

More than 200 people were interviewed by investigators. The entities and individuals gave documents. U.S. Soccer also provided documents and the firm reviewed 89,000 deemed likely to be relevant.

She said in a statement that the abuse described is terrible and it has no place in any workplace or training facility. “As the national governing body for our sport, U.S. Soccer is fully committed to doing everything in its power to ensure that all players — at all levels — have a safe and respectful place to learn, grow and compete.”

Holly and the player, who plays in Europe, had an encounter in April 2021. Holly invited her to watch game film with him and allegedly told her that for every pass she messed up, he was going to touch her. Simon told investigators Holly “pushed his hands down her pants and up her shirt.”

Sexual misconduct against a female soccer player by a head coach at the Portland Thorns, according to a high-up soccer player

The 28-year-old said that she knew because she felt that way. “Through many difficult days, my faith alone sustained me and kept me going. I want to make sure no other player is aware of what I did. This report allows our voices to finally be heard and is the first step toward achieving the respectful workplace we all deserve.”

Christy Holly was fired from Racing Louisville after the team determined that he had engaged in long-term and egregious sexual misconduct against a player, according to the report – though at the time, the team merely said they fired him “for cause.”

Farrelly said that she was harassed by teammates at the Philadelphia Independence of the Women’s Professional Soccer league. She was coached by Riley.

She told The Athletic the abuse by Riley continued when she was with the Portland Thorns in 2014 and 2015. Shim, a former Thorns player, also said she experienced harassment. Neither woman is playing in the NWSL now.

The Thorns terminated him after a one-week investigation, citing several provisions of Riley’s employment contract for cause, among them being gross negligent or carelessness in performing his duties, Yates found.

The report mentioned that the Portland Thorns tried to impede the use of documents and interfered with our access to witnesses.

In one case, a head coach allegedly asked a player to review match footage 1-on-1 at his house only to show pornography instead. According to the report, the same manager sexually coerced the player and grabbed and groped her in public.

High-ups in soccer failed to properly investigate or make public reports of abuse by coaches, allowing them to move to other teams, as noted in the report.

Cindy Parlow Cone told reporters during the video conference call that she was having trouble absorbing everything in the report. “I think it will take some time to really read through it and think about the actions and inactions of certain people and then will take us some time to think about what needs to be done in terms of discipline.”

A US Soccer statement noted the federation’s board of directors had voted to release the full report on Monday while preserving “victim privacy and confidentiality.”

The NFL Women’s Soccer Soccer Team is reeling from a recent investigation of systemic abuse and corruption in the U.S. soccer

Riley and Dames did not respond to requests for comment Monday, and Holly declined to comment. Holly denied some of the claims that were made against him. Through his lawyer, Dames declined to speak with investigators. Riley agreed to provide written responses but never did.

The US women’s national team will play England at Wembley on Friday. As the world champion takes on the European champion, back in the US, women’s professional soccer is reeling from an independent investigation that found systemic abuse and corruption within the sport.

“The players are not doing well. We are horrified and heartbroken and frustrated and exhausted. And we are really, really angry. “We are angry that it took a third-party investigation,” he stated at the beginning of the press conference.

“It’s hard,” midfielder Lindsey Horan said Wednesday at a media availability in London. We are angry. We’re pissed off and personally I feel like in a weird spot just because you know, I learned new things in this investigation that I didn’t know before and I wanted to wait and read it for myself and to be a part of an organization that was in this is really hard for me.”

It took way too long and we were thankful for that. This whole thing was prolonged incredibly, and I sit here and I’m like, it’s not done. This is all over the world.

“I think this report coming out was kind of the nail in the coffin,” Dunn said at a press conference in London on Wednesday. “It’s going to allow a lot of accountability that hasn’t really taken place and I think I am quite hopeful that the healing phase can now really take place.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/07/football/nwsl-soccer-abuse-explainer-intl-spt/index.html

Paul Riley Accused of Sexual Conduct and Abuse at the Elements of the Chicago Red Stars, the Northern Super League, and the Joint Investigative Team

“Paul Riley’s abuse was prolonged and wide-ranging. It encompassed teams and players. The report states there were emotional, abuse of power and sexual misdeeds. Before coaching the Courage, Riley had coached two other NWSL teams – the Portland Thorns and the Western New York Flash.

He admitted to sending and soliciting sexual photos to Simon. But he denied that any sexual conduct continued at Racing Louisville,” the report added.

They added “while our former coach was terminated within 24 hours of us being alerted to the behavior, we know that wasn’t enough and that we failed our locker room by creating a space where this behavior could occur.

One player’s allegations “recounted an instance where Dames gave her a ride after practice and ‘ask[ed] me all kinds of questions about sex … and wouldn’t take me home until I answered the questions,’” while another alleged Dames would “give girls tips on sex” and say things like: “you should be shaved and bare down there,” and “I hope you are giving your boyfriend a good time.”

The current owner and president of the Eclipse Select Soccer Club is Dames, the former head coach of the Chicago Red Stars.

The Yates report will be addressed by him but his hands are limited at this point as U.S. Soccer referred the matter to SafeSport. AfterAdvice of counsel, Mr. Dames refused to talk publicly about these matters.

For most of the league’s existence, it has had no anti-harassment policy, no anti-retaliation policy and no anti-fraternization policy, the scathing report noted.

National Women’s Soccer League commissioner Jessica Berman issued a statement Tuesday saying the league is committed to “implementing reform and disciplinary action” based on the Yates report and the findings of the league and union’s ongoing investigation.

“We have asked the Joint Investigative Team to consider the recommendations set forth in the Yates Report when making their recommendations to the NWSL. The NWSL asked the Joint Investigative Team to look into the findings in the Yates Report when they finish their report.

The Federation, League, and teams failed to respond appropriately when confronted with evidence of abuse, even though they were warned about it.

Fans reacted angrily to allegations of abuse. The Chicago Red Stars are playing the Portland Thorns FC at Providence Park on November 14, 2021, while a sign reading “You knew” is displayed.

Portland Thorns FC and the Portland Timbers have fired their president of soccer and the club owner has removed himself from all decisions related to the team.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/07/football/nwsl-soccer-abuse-explainer-intl-spt/index.html

Analogies between the Portland Thorns and the Chicago Red Stars in the wake of the 2015 USSF/Sally Yates investigation

In his Tuesday statement, Paulson apologized for his organization’s role in “a gross systemic failure to protect player safety and the missteps we made in 2015.”

The owner of the Portland Thorns, who is a 10-year NWSL veteran, said that every owner and US soccer official who failed to protect the players hid behind their legal difficulties and did not even participate fully in the investigations.

The Portland Thorns and the Portland Timbers have had their ties with fan groups suspended because of revelations in the report.

In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday, the supporter groups known collectively as 107IST, said “While we were prepared for the worst, nothing prepared us for what was contained in the USSF/ Sally Yates report.

The league said that it would review the findings and its own investigation was ongoing. That investigation is expected to be released in November.

The report named both franchises. “The NWSL is supportive of the important steps taken by the Portland Thorns and Chicago Red Stars today,” Berman said in a written statement.

“While it will take time, we are fully prepared to take the necessary steps to protect the health and safety of our players, staff and other stakeholders in order to create the League that our players, fans, partners and staff deserve and expect,” she said.

Her anger was clear but so was her fatigue. Rapinoe and her teammates have had to “shoulder a lot” over the years, as she put it. The battle to free the sport, their sport, of both abusers and individuals and structures that have both harbored and nourished them is not the first battle. This team has fought for equal pay and for social justice, too. “We have a lot of experience,” Rapinoe said.

Rapinoe had met each and every one of the questions, as she always does, with the habitual, measured candor that has become her hallmark. Not once did she intimate that she had said all she had to say. Not once did she try to change the subject, to guide the conversation onto ground less harrowing, less bleak. She was asked to relive her trauma many times, but she only did it until there were no more questions left.

At that point, for just a moment, she sounded tired. But then, almost as an afterthought, someone pointed out where she was, what was about to happen: Rapinoe was sitting inside London’s Wembley Stadium, preparing for a game on Friday night that will match the United States, the reigning world champion, against England, now officially ensconced as Europe’s premier team.

The story of Brittney Griner and Mahsa Amini: an unknown woman in sport and the case of a female athlete in Iran

News last week that a Russian court upheld Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner’s sentence of nine years in a penal colony for drug smuggling surprised no one. While Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, deemed the appeal “another sham judicial proceeding” and asked that Griner “be released immediately,” the outcome continues to hang in the air as her legal team considers next steps.

Tough questions regarding women in sports are raised by Griner’s plight. Would public reaction to her situation or her fate itself be different, for example, if she were an NBA, not WNBA, star? Does anyone challenge the reality that Griner never would have been in Russia, where she receives a star’s salary to play for UMMC Yekaterinburg, in the first place apart from her gender and the pay gap that goes along with it?

With much speculation about her passport, her cell phone and her location, many believed the story that Elnin Rekabi had gone missing after winning the Asian Continental Climbing Championships in Korea without wearing a hijab.

The climber posted to Instagram that she had made a mistake in a rush to compete and didn’t mean to climb without her hijab. After she returned home several days later, her head covered by both a baseball hat and hood, cheering crowds greeted her and the team.

But her fate remains a question mark amongst the surge of anti-government protests – “Woman, Life, Freedom” – led by women and girls (and increasingly a number of men) in the wake of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the Iran’s morality police for violation of hijab protocol. Depending on who you talk to, Rekabi is under house arrest, or she was forced to apologize by the authorities.

The story and many unknowns of Rekabi are very familiar. Just last year, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared from public view after she posted sexual misconduct allegations against former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli to China’s Twitter-like platform, Weibo.

The Chinese Olympic Committee’s chief of staff Wang Kan was present when the interview was done with, and he witnessed the denial of the allegations. After pressure from the United Nations Human Rights office and an embargo by the Women’s Tennis Association, she re-emerged, making an appearance at an event at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games alongside IOC President Thomas Bach.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/brittney-griner-mana-russia-shim-us-soccer-bass/index.html

Why Women should not be Responsible for their Occultations: The Case of Portland Thorns vs. Kansas City Current in the NWSL

Evidence shows that women are often asked to bear the burden of responsibility for the violence that occurs on them instead of being asked to dismantle misogynist systems. That tells you that the world is not safe, and that you didn’t do everything you could to protect yourself.

These stories – as wide-ranging and different as they are – speak to a deeper point. Sport is one of the most controlled arenas in society. There are rules, officials, managers, owners, organizing bodies, coaches, and fans all watching, all observing, every move an athlete makes.

There are helmets and pads for protection; drug tests to ensure fair play. There are consequences for dangerous behaviors such as free throws, penalty kicks, and power plays. A slide tackle in soccer with cleats up? Do not do it again, this is a red card. Throw an elbow into someone’s face on the basketball court? Take a seat.

The lack of accountability is well known to women but needs to take up more space, prompt more action, in society writ large. It is part of why so many of us cannot look away from what might lie ahead for an Iranian rock climber, a US basketball star, a professional soccer player, and so many others. If these elite athletes – the owners of these bodies who fly and soar, slam and hit, climb and jump, who work in a world filled with rules and judges and spectators – are not safe, then what can the rest of us mere mortals expect?

Change should be expected and it will lead to safe space for all women. As the Portland Thorns beat the Kansas City Current for its historic third NWSL title on Saturday, fans at Audi Field held signs that read “Support the Players,” a mantra that applies both on and off the field.