6 Takeaways From the Report on Sexual Misconduct in Women’s Soccer

Lack of oversight

The report also detailed how allegations of abuse or misconduct were often not fully investigated. When they were, the accused coaches later had opportunities to coach elsewhere. The report found that several investigations across the league “failed to successfully root out misconduct.”

After the 2015 N.W.S.L. season, one player reported Riley’s sexual misconduct to the Portland Thorns, where he was then coaching, and the league. The Thorns conducted an investigation that lasted one week, and Riley was promptly terminated from the team. But the Thorns did not inform their players, other teams or the public about the reason for Riley’s termination. Riley was later hired by another women’s league team.

The report said that several players tried to raise concerns about Dames over the years, including in 2014, 2015 and 2018. A report by the United States Women’s National Team Players Association in 2018 prompted Lydia Wahlke, U.S. Soccer’s chief legal officer, to hire outside counsel to investigate Dames. By October 2018, the investigation had found that Dames created “a cycle of emotional abuse and manipulation” at the Chicago Red Stars. But Wahlke did not share the findings with the Red Stars or the N.W.S.L.

One player said she had realized that reporting Dames’s conduct “was a lost cause.”

Youth soccer

The investigation did not directly examine youth soccer in the United States, but the report found several instances of verbal and sexual abuse of players.

“The culture of tolerating verbal abuse of players goes beyond the N.W.S.L.,” the report said. “Players also told us that their experiences of verbal abuse and blurred relationships with coaches in youth soccer impacted their ability to discern what was out of bounds in the N.W.S.L.”

One example cited in the report details an anonymous complaint that Riley had created an “unsafe environment” in his F.C. Fury Development Academy girls’ program and that a coach in the program had “inappropriately touched a minor player.” The person making the complaint said that Riley had not reported the incident and expressed “fear of reprisal from Riley for speaking out,” adding that Riley is “known to be vindictive to anyone who crossed him.”

Recommendations

Among its recommendations, the report said that teams should be required to disclose coaches’ misconduct to their leagues to ensure that the coaches cannot move freely from one team to another, and that the N.W.S.L. should be required to meaningfully vet its coaches and investigate allegations of misconduct.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/sports/soccer/soccer-abuse-report-takeaways.html