There’s Another Report on the Widespread Abuses in Women’s Soccer

December 15, 2022

Hey Meteor readers,

I’m peeved this evening. I’ve been peeved all day, really. This morning, a new report detailing ongoing abuse in women’s soccer was released and I’ve been muttering obscenities under my breath about it all day. So as you can guess, we spend some time with what’s in it and what’s being done about it.

We’ve also got a quick cruise through today’s news. Let’s get into it.

Staring out the window,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

Continued abuse in women’s soccer: A new joint investigation conducted by the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and the NWSL Player’s Association confirmed widespread “sexual abuse, unwanted sexual advances…emotional abuse, cronyism, racist remarks” and retaliation against players who reported this behavior. If you’re wondering why this sounds so familiar, it’s because the Yates report, released in October of this year, arrived at a similar conclusion.

The new report examines the league as a whole and provides more detail on specific misconduct allegations, including those levied against former Gotham FC general manager Alyse LaHue, who was fired in 2021 to the surprise of team supporters. (LaHue was presented as the woman who would turn Gotham, the New Jersey area team, around.) According to the unnamed player who made the allegations, not only did LaHue engage in sexual harassment, but she also practiced religious discrimination. LaHue’s lawyers deny the allegations.

The report also detailed the fallout from an incident that took place last year involving the Houston Dash’s Sarah Gorden. After a match in Chicago, Gorden had shared on Twitter that she and her boyfriend had been racially profiled by security staff. No disciplinary action was taken—but even more alarmingly, this latest report reveals that head coach James Clarkson asked Gorden’s teammates to apologize to the security staff for publicly supporting her claim. Clarkson even went so far as to hand out the phone numbers of the accused so that players could easily contact them.

But even with these two bombshell reports, there might be more to uncover. Both U.S. Soccer and some NWSL teams “delayed providing key evidence,” citing legal privilege due to “confidentiality or non-disparagement agreements with coaches fired for misconduct.”

Additionally, both reports make it a point to get at the larger issues at play: The NWSL didn’t have an anti-fraternization policy until 2018, which could have curbed the number of coaches who felt emboldened to pursue players romantically—nor was there an anti-harassment policy until 2021. (If you’re keeping track, that’s 30 years after Anita Hill and four years after #MeToo!) That means there was no structure for players on reporting or handling unwanted advances from coaches or other team staff. Instead, most accused coaches were quietly fired or transferred to different teams within the league to continue their careers undisturbed, as was explained both in the Yates report and this one.

While the entire report is infuriating, one section, in particular, made me want to yeet my computer into the Passaic. On top of having to deal with harassment, job insecurity, and retaliation, many players reported being treated like “charity cases” rather than professional athletes. Imagine for a moment spending your entire adolescent life training for a job, getting scholarships for your talent, eventually being signed to a professional team, being harassed and silenced in an effort to keep your job only to have the owner of that team act as if they’re doing you a favor.

One unnamed player explained, “[The owner] made it seem like his players were his kids which, if you had the owner of the Knicks saying that to one of his players, that’s weird.”

Two investigations into rampant, widespread abuse, and all anyone has to show for it are some lukewarm apologies and belated recommendations on strengthening a one-year-old anti-harassment policy and adding in sensitivity training? We need to do better.

AND:

Megan Thee Stallion testified this week in the case against Tory Lanez, who is on trial for three assault charges and one gun charge. In July 2020, Megan reported that Lanez allegedly shot at her feet. Since then the press and music industry has had a field day calling into question everything from her account of what happened to her sexual history, including one particularly unsavory lyric from Drake, who sang, “This bitch lie about getting shot but she still a stallion.” Classy. In part of Megan’s testimony, she stated that after the incident, Lanez offered her $1 million not to tell anyone what happened. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Investigative reporter Olivia Raisner went undercover at five “crisis pregnancy centers” to understand what these places—which lure pregnant people in with promises of help but are actually anti-abortion non-medical facilities—were telling their patients. The footage isn’t just alarming; it’s riddled with inaccuracies and scare tactics. In the video, staff can be heard claiming that people who get abortions may develop eating disorders, display an increased chance of depression, suicide, have difficulty becoming pregnant again, and sharing other lies about the supposed dangers of the (actually very safe) abortion pill.
As of today, nurses in the UK are officially on strike for the first time in the 74-year history of the National Health Service. The nurses are calling for higher wages and an end to staffing shortages.
The New York City Medical Examiner’s office has determined the cause of death for prominent journalist Grant Wahl, who died while covering the World Cup in Qatar. Wahl’s wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, wrote on his Substack that he died from an aortic aneurysm.
Today, to much Congressional fanfare, the House passed the Puerto Rico Status Act. The measure lays out a process through which Puerto Ricans will be able to vote between statehood, independence, and free association. That sounds like a leap forward—after all, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said today, “for the first time in our nation’s history, the U.S. recognized its role as a colonizing force”—but lipstick on a pig is still lipstick on a pig. It remains unclear to those who need to cast their vote what exactly free association is and how the three choices would affect the hundreds of thousands living in poverty stemming from policies enacted by the U.S. Then there is the larger unanswered question of reparations, of which the PRSA makes no mention, a flaw that even AOC can’t ignore.
Harvard has a new president: Claudine Gay. She will be the first ever Black woman to hold the position.
As your Netflix queue has surely informed you, the final three episodes of the Harry and Meghan docuseries are now streaming. Though most of the chatter has been about whether it makes sense to film a whole TV series about how you want more privacy, the documentation of the vast media smear operation this couple had to deal with, and the extent to which no one who could help did, is fascinating. One of the strongest parts details the finding that the tsunami of social-media hate Meghan faced on Twitter was largely orchestrated by a small number of users, many of them “middle-aged Caucasian women,” according to the analyst of the tweets.