There are disturbing scenes to read about. For example: a coach meets with a player for video analysis; meanwhile, however, he shows a porn film and masturbates. Or: A coach insults his players, then he asks them about their sexual experiences. Or: A coach forces players to do sexual favors.
This is how witnesses describe the conditions in American women’s football. Worse still, nothing was done about it, it was swept under the rug for years. This is the result of one 319-page reports presented this week on sexual abuse in US soccer.
US players who do not feel emotionally able will now not have to compete in London
“The players are not doing well. They are sad, frustrated, appalled, but above all really, really angry,” says Becky Sauerbrunn, captain of the US national team that will play against European champions England this Friday at London’s Wembley Stadium . Coach Vlatko Andonovski said that no player should play if she doesn’t feel emotionally able – which shows how far-reaching the findings of the report must be.
The sports portal published exactly one year ago The Athletic Allegations against Paul Riley, one of the best-known and most successful coaches in US women’s soccer (three titles, two-time Coach of the Year). As a result, the women’s league NWSL announced an investigation – which had not been heard of for so long that it was believed to be the usual hesitant approach of sports federations to scandals. But nothing could have been further from the truth. The report’s findings, based on testimonies from more than 200 players, are worse than anyone could have imagined.
The NWSL is a league “in which verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual misconduct has become a system — and stretches across multiple teams, coaches, and victims,” according to the summary of the investigation, which was led by former US Attorney General Sally Q .Yates was directed. This abuse is rooted “in a culture in US women’s soccer that begins in youth leagues, which normalizes verbal gaffes from coaches and blurs the lines between coaches and players.”
Reading the report is disturbing, not only because of the allegations mentioned. But mainly because those responsible for football have declared a whole range of potential perpetrators to be impeccable supervisors and coaches – knowing that people who come into contact with them could suffer irreparable damage.
Players who made allegations had to continue playing under Riley for almost six months
The example of Riley stands out: there were allegations against him in 2015, when he was the coach of the Portland Thorns. The club launched an investigation that doesn’t deserve the label and at the end of the season it was said the parting ways were amicable. So players who came forward with these allegations had to continue playing under Riley for almost six months during the investigation. Just a few months later, Riley became the head coach at Western New York Flash, and in a Twitter post, Portland wished him “all the best” in the new role. The problem was solved in a simple way.
Riley’s new club moved shortly thereafter and called itself North Carolina Courage. There, players accused him of forcing them to have sex and asking two of his players to kiss in front of him to save the team a conditioning session the next day. The then NWSL boss Lisa Baird knew about the allegations in 2015, after the new allegations she was amazed and said she was “disgusted and shocked”. Riley still denies the allegations, the league has since revoked his license.
Always protect your own circles, that was apparently the motto in US women’s football. How much that seems to apply to this day is shown by the fact that, according to the report, the Portland Thorns – the club that let Riley work with the alleged victims for months despite the allegations and later wished him only the best – would not have cooperated with the investigators . The Thorns “obstructed access to witnesses and attempted legal skirmishes to deny us access to relevant documents.”
The report shows how easy it is in sport to abuse power and trust
The report is a very detailed and disturbing investigation into how easy it is to abuse power and trust in sport. And even if the investigation only deals with the US professional league NWSL – in which five out of ten clubs parted with their coach due to misconduct last season – it also says that US youth football and other countries are urgently needed have to watch.
What’s next? Of course, everyone is now concerned and promises changes. For example, Thorns owner Merritt Paulson fired two senior employees on Wednesday and then said he was retiring for the time being – but there is currently no sign he wants to sell the team. It sounds like a pawn sacrifice in order to continue as unmolested as possible.
By the way, the star defender in Portland is national team captain Becky Sauerbrunn, and she says in no uncertain terms: “It’s frustrating that it took an investigation and 200 people to work through their trauma. Those responsible for allowing this should go. ” That’s a clear message, also to owner Merrit Paulson. As was her response to the question of whether she felt safe with the Thorns: “It doesn’t matter at all. As long as everyone doesn’t feel safe, the situation isn’t good enough.”