Players were trying to comprehend the results of an inquiry that revealed emotional abuse and sexual misbehavior are pervasive in women's soccer as they got ready for the United States' match against England on Friday at Wembley Stadium.
“We are horrified and heartbroken and frustrated and exhausted and really, really angry,” said defender Becky Sauerbrunn.
Sally Q. Yates, a former acting attorney general of the United States, and the legal team of King & Spaulding, who were hired by U.S. Soccer to look into allegations of abuse in the National Women's Soccer League after a string of scandals last year, issued a report on Monday.
Another investigation is being carried out by the NWSL and its players association.
Following charges of wrongdoing, five out of ten NWSL coaches either lost their jobs or resigned in the previous campaign. Paul Riley, the coach of the North Carolina Courage, was one of them. Riley was fired when Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly, two former players, accused him of sexual harassment and coercion going back ten years. Riley disputed the charges.
The Portland Thorns, Sauerbrunn's NWSL team, said that owner Merritt Paulson, general manager Gavin Wilkinson, and executive Mike Golub will immediately resign from any decision-making relating to the Thorns until the league inquiry is over.
When Riley was the Thorns' coach from 2014 to 2015, Farrelly and Shim were on the team. The Thorns chose not to extend Riley's contract at the time after conducting an internal review into the allegations. Riley went on to coach for another team in the league, but no explanation for the choice was ever made public.
Regarding the mounting pressure on Paulson to sell the team, Sauerbrunn was questioned. She expressed the opinion that the joint inquiry of the NWSL would make its own recommendations on punishment.
“I think we’re all reckoning with the things that were said in the report. Still kind of working through that, in all the ways that we individually do,” said OL Reign defender Alana Cook. “I think we have such a momentous occasion on Friday playing at a sold out Wembley Stadium, and it’s 사설토토 marred by this report, and it’s marred by the atrocities that have been condoned and tolerated and allowed to go on.”