A Portland Timbers' game in 2021 (WSJ)

An investigation commissioned by the United States Soccer Federation has found, after a year-long probe, that the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has been infested with cases of sexual misconduct and abuse, harassment, and assault. The case was handled by former acting US Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and represented by the law firm King & Spalding LLC.

The report read: “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. Abuse in the NWSL is rooted in a deeper culture in women’s soccer, beginning in youth leagues, that normalizes verbally abusive coaching and blurs boundaries between coaches and players.”

Following numerous accounts of sexual harassment, coercion, and assault brought forward by US female soccer players, the investigation found examples including but not limited to coaches performing sexual acts in front of their players without consent, coercing them into sexual relationships and harassing them during training. In one case, a Racing Louisville FC coach by the name of Christy Holly invited his player Erin Simon to his house for what should have been a game-film review for training purposes but ended up being a time when the coach performed sexual acts in front of her and constantly touched her without consent. Utah Royals FC coach Dell Loy Hansen was even publicly stroking his players' cheeks, holding their hands and being 'touchy'.

The report even found that the soccer teams, the NWSL, and US Soccer, did not adequately succeed in safeguarding the environment for the players to feel safe about excelling in their careers. Many players were threatened to have their careers put to an end and publicly humiliated if they did not meet the demands of the coach or if they did not have sexual relations with them. This led many players to stay silent about the incidents for fear of retaliation.

Cindy Parlow, US Soccer’s president and a former player on the US women’s national team, expressed that the findings of the probe are “heartbreaking and deeply troubling,” adding: “The abuse described is inexcusable and has no place on any playing field, in any training facility or workplace. As the national governing body for our sport, US 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. We are taking the immediate action that we can today, and will convene leaders in soccer at all levels across the country to collaborate on the recommendations so we can create meaningful, long-lasting change throughout the soccer ecosystem.”

However, according to the report, three clubs – the Portland Thorns, Racing Louisville FC, and the Chicago Stars – failed to respond and cooperate with investigators on the case.

“Teams, the League, and the Federation not only repeatedly failed to respond appropriately when confronted with player reports and evidence of abuse, they also failed to institute basic measures to prevent and address it, even as some leaders privately acknowledged the need for workplace protections,” the report read. “As a result, abusive coaches moved from team to team, laundered by press releases thanking them for their service, and positive references from teams that minimized or even concealed misconduct. Those at the NWSL and USSF in a position to correct the record stayed silent. And no one at the teams, the League, or the Federation demanded better of coaches.”

The recommendations in the 234-page report included the call for transparency and holding the coaches accountable for their actions instead of moving them from team to team.

“The Portland Thorns interfered with our access to relevant witnesses and raised specious legal arguments in an attempt to impede our use of relevant documents,” the report read. “Racing Louisville FC refused to produce documents concerning [former coach] Christy Holly and would not permit witnesses (even former employees) to answer relevant questions regarding Holly’s tenure, citing non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements it signed with Holly. The Chicago Red Stars unnecessarily delayed the production of relevant documents over the course of nearly nine months.”

In the wake of the accumulation of claims and evidence, multiple coaches were fired - five of the ten teams in the League had their coaches let go. Potential abuse in girls’ soccer was also a warning in the report and although the investigators did not investigate youth soccer, it said: “The roots of abuse in women’s soccer run deep and will not be eliminated through reform in the NWSL alone".

The NWSL is not the only corporation to be exposed, as last April, more than two dozen former NFL (National Football League) employees claimed they experienced sexual harassment and discrimination, including unwelcome touching by male bosses, insensitive comments, unfair criticism based on stereotypes, not obtaining promotions, and being fired for submitting complaints about discrimination. Even the US Open this year was exposed by player Victoria Azarenko for seeing coaches manipulate female players into dependence, adding that "you won’t hear those stories unless players come out and tell those stories".

Misogyny and sexual abuse towards women have been a prominent controversy since the #MeToo movement gained momentum in 2017, starting in Hollywood, to politics and moving into the field of sports. This trajectory exposed the toxic and unjust environment that women and girls in the US have to deal with on the basis of them being female and having to fear risking their careers by submitting to derogatory, abusive, and demeaning ways by individuals who are supposed to be their mentors - be they coaches, directors or bosses.

In industries in the US run by money and men who are run by money, women often become victims to the power imbalance only bred by a social system in which justice becomes selective and democracy becomes a matter of lip service.