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    How Julie Ertz, a New Mother, Hustled Back to the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team

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    Even before Julie Ertz gave birth to her son, Madden, last August, she knew it would be a challenge to return to the fitness and form that would be required of her if she wanted to play in a third Women’s World Cup.Pregnancy and childbirth, unlike sports injuries, offer no reliable timeline for return, no proven handbook to guide a player back from what is a life-changing event. More important, Ertz, who was 30 when Madden was born, wanted to gauge her progress discreetly before she made any promises to the national team. To pull that off without attracting attention, Ertz was going to need help.A group of teenage boys answered the call.Ertz was in Phoenix, which is her hometown and where her husband, Zach, plays tight end for the Arizona Cardinals. She reached out to two of the coaches who knew her best: Paul Taylor and Matt Midkiff, who had helped guide her development from preteen prodigy to college all-American. Taylor and Midkiff connected Ertz with Phoenix Rising, a United Soccer League club with a Major League Soccer Academy program. Ertz arranged to begin training with the club’s under-19 team in February.When Taylor informed the boys on the team that Julie Ertz would be coming to practice, many of the players greeted the news with blank stares.But not Luke Burns.Luke Burns, right, was pleasantly surprised when he found out Julie Ertz would be training with his team. He was a fan.Courtesy Luke Burns“At first, I was star-struck,” said Burns, 17. “I don’t think many of my teammates really knew who she was. But I was one of the only ones who was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’”Burns, who has committed to play at the University of Virginia, said his older sister, who also plays college soccer, got him into watching women’s soccer at a young age. He knew the players. He knew their histories and their highlights. Still, he said, it took him 15 minutes to work up the courage to introduce himself to Ertz at her first training session. It took even less time to sense that she was a cut above.“Even on the first day of training that we had with her, she was in the best shape out of all of us,” Burns said. “She would do extra sprints after practice. She would do these little things to become a bit better. And it showed me that if I wanted to go to the professional level, I have to do those extra things as well.”Taylor said Ertz set a high standard for herself in their first conversation. If she was going to come back, she told him, she did not want to simply come back as the player she was before. She wanted to be better than anyone remembered, better than even she could remember.“I know the expectation and standards that this team has,” Ertz said. “And I didn’t want to go into any camp if I wasn’t feeling like I could actually compete.”An Ertz fan at the U.S. team’s send-off game in California.Marlena Sloss for The New York TimesFor Ertz, that motivation came from an intimate knowledge of the national team and the role she would need to play to contribute at this World Cup. At the time she returned to training, the national team’s captain and defensive linchpin, Becky Sauerbrunn, was struggling with a foot injury. (Sauerbrunn was eventually left off the World Cup roster.) Sam Mewis, a midfielder who had played a pivotal role in the team’s 2019 World Cup championship, was enduring repeated setbacks with her injured knee. (Mewis may never play elite soccer again.)Without them, Ertz knew, the U.S. team was in need of experience and leadership at the back. It needed her to be the glue that held the spine of the team together.But by February, the clock was ticking. When U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski released a training camp roster for the SheBelieves Cup, Ertz’s absence was not a surprise. Still, Andonovski warned, “time is running out for her.”As the pressure mounted, Ertz remained committed to taking things slow. She knew she needed to reach peak performance quickly, but she also knew she couldn’t rush it.By March, national team staff members had seen Ertz play with Phoenix Rising in scrimmages and had come away impressed. Talk of her returning for the World Cup began to circulate inside the team. Defender Kelley O’Hara, who has played with Ertz for 10 years, said she tried to manage her excitement when it began to sound possible that Ertz would make it back in time.“I started texting her,” O’Hara said, excitedly miming a typing motion with her fingers. “Not trying to put too much pressure, and not trying to, you know, sway her decision. But she’s awesome and she’s an incredible teammate to have, especially in tournaments like this.”Ertz returned to club soccer in April with Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League.Troy Wayrynen/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn late March, Andonovski called Ertz into her first training camp since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. In April, Ertz returned to club soccer by signing with Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League. Slowly increasing her workload and fitness, Ertz showed Andonovski enough that he named her to his 23-player roster for the World Cup. Days later, in her final game before she left the club to join the national team for training, she played 97 minutes. Her comeback was complete.“It’s been competitive, which is what you need,” Ertz said of her two months with Angel City. “It’s been an environment to be able to thrive.”Now a bigger task awaits. She and her U.S. teammates will open the World Cup on Friday night (Eastern time) in Auckland, New Zealand. Madden Ertz and his father will be in the stands cheering. Julie Ertz will probably be right in the middle of the field. Right where she wanted to be. Right where her team needs her. More

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      Megan Rapinoe Announces Retirement After World Cup, NWSL Season

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      The women’s national team star made an unexpected retirement announcement ahead of a U.S. friendly against Wales.Megan Rapinoe, the soccer star who has been a fixture of the dominant U.S. women’s national team and one of the most politically outspoken American athletes, said Saturday that she planned to retire at the end of the year, making this upcoming World Cup her last.Rapinoe, 38, has played for the U.S. women’s national team since 2006 and the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand scheduled to begin later this month would be her fourth.“I could have just never imagined where this beautiful game would have taken me,” Rapinoe told reporters during an unexpected appearance at a news conference ahead of a U.S. game against Wales in San Jose, Calif., scheduled for Sunday.“I feel so honored to have represented this country, this federation for so many years,” she said. “It’s truly been the greatest thing I’ve ever done.”Rapinoe, who has had numerous injuries throughout her career, has been dealing with an ankle injury leading up to the National Women’s Soccer League season and missed two national team friendlies against Ireland in April with a calf injury.Rapinoe made perhaps her biggest mark in 2019, when she won the Ballon d’Or as soccer’s women’s player of the year and earned the Golden Boot as the top scorer and the Golden Ball as the top player of the World Cup, with six goals.She was outspoken on numerous issues, including L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and was a frequent antagonist of former President Donald J. Trump. Her leadership of the team also came at a time when it was fighting with its national federation for pay equity, confronting differences between the economics of the men’s and women’s versions of the sport.Rapinoe also played in two women’s professional leagues in the United States, beginning in the Women’s Professional League, which folded in 2011, and in the N.W.S.L. She said she would retire from the N.W.S.L. after this season.Alex Morgan, another top star for the U.S. team, said Rapinoe texted the team’s group chat on Saturday morning to announce her decision. “Well,” Morgan said, “now we have to go win the whole damn thing.” More

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      The Shadow of an Abuse Scandal Looms Over a World Cup Soccer Team

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      Vera Pauw was accused of body-shaming players while coaching in the National Women’s Soccer League. Sinead Farrelly helped expose abuse in that league. The two are now working together on Team Ireland.AUSTIN, Texas — As Ireland prepares for its first Women’s World Cup, its coach and a newly included midfielder find themselves on opposite sides of an abuse scandal that has roiled soccer in the United States. But their separate conflicts have fused into a tentative and pragmatic alliance.Vera Pauw, 60, Ireland’s national coach and a former coach of the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League, was accused late last year of body-shaming players and of being a “power freak” who sought to control their lives when she coached the Dash in 2018. At a news conference in Austin on Friday, Pauw labeled the accusations, contained in a blistering report organized by the league and its players’ union, “absolutely ridiculous and false.”Sinead Farrelly, 33, a native of suburban Philadelphia who has dual citizenship with Ireland, was a brave and vital whistle-blower who helped lift the league’s veil of indifference toward coaching misconduct. Farrelly and other players made accusations of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse that led to four N.W.S.L. coaches’ being barred permanently from the league early this year.Pauw was not accused of sexual impropriety, did not coach Farrelly in the league and was not among those barred for life. To return to the N.W.S.L., however, she has been told that she must accept responsibility for her actions. That restriction does not apply to international soccer.For the next few months at least, Pauw, who is Dutch, and Farrelly, who ended her seven-year absence from soccer last month in returning to the N.W.S.L. and made her debut for Ireland on Saturday, are expected to collaborate as Ireland approaches the World Cup this summer in Australia and New Zealand.The United States, a four-time world champion, and Ireland will play a second tuneup match on Tuesday in St. Louis. In a 2-0 defeat to the Americans on Saturday in Austin, Farrelly sought to bring a calming presence while starting in Ireland’s midfield after only two training sessions. Pauw said that she had spoken to Farrelly before she joined the Irish team and had tried to make her feel comfortable. They share a desire to perform on soccer’s grandest stage but also a horrible commonality. Last year, Pauw said that she had been raped by a Dutch soccer official when she was a player and that she had also been sexually assaulted by two other men.For 35 years, she kept the abuse private, Pauw said in a statement last July, allowing the memories “to control my life, to fill me with daily pain and anguish.”In a broad sense, the Pauw-Farrelly union can be viewed as a dispiriting sign of how widespread accusations of impropriety are in women’s soccer.On a personal level, Pauw is trying to restore her reputation, which she believes was unfairly tarnished. And Farrelly is attempting to restart a career, once blooming with promise but prematurely shriveled by what she has described as sexual coercion, emotional manipulation and the shattering of her self-confidence by a former coach, Paul Riley.In September 2021, Farrelly told The Athletic that Riley, one of the top coaches in women’s soccer, had coerced her into a yearslong sexual relationship and once manipulated her into kissing a teammate with the Portland Thorns in front of him in exchange for a less strenuous team practice. The teammate, Mana Shim, confirmed Farrelly’s account and made other similar allegations of misconduct against Riley. He has denied having sex with any players.The revelations pulled back the curtain on systemic abuse in women’s soccer and led to wide-ranging fallout across the N.W.S.L. An investigation headed by Sally Q. Yates, a former deputy U.S. attorney general, described Riley’s misbehavior over the years as an “open secret.”Farrelly said on Saturday that her comeback would not have been possible without the catharsis of telling her story publicly. “That healing and liberation from that had to occur before I could ever play again,” she said.She has described her return to soccer as one day at a time. Farrelly said she has been asking well-wishers, “Will you still love me if I totally mess this up?”“Because that’s my biggest fear,” she told a small group of reporters. “I don’t want to go out there and fail and make mistakes. That’s just how my brain works.”Instead, she said, she was “really trying to take people’s support and not twist it into pressure.” She wants to be grateful for the experience of attempting to make a World Cup team. “I play my best when I’m having fun. I just need to bring it back to that every time.”Farrelly playing against the United States on Saturday.Dustin Safranek/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConFarrelly announced her retirement in 2016, the result of injuries both psychic and physical, including those sustained in a 2015 car accident. But she returned to the N.W.S.L last month and signed with Gotham F.C., saying in a statement that she wanted to be a dependable player while “also having grace and compassion with myself” and hoped to “inspire others to follow their dreams, no matter how far out of reach they may seem.”Pauw’s return to the N.W.S.L. remains uncertain. Last December, in the report organized by the league and its players’ union, Pauw was accused of shaming Houston players in 2018 about their weight and attempting to “exert excessive control over their eating habits,” including discouraging the eating of fruit because of its sugar content, “with no apparent correlation to performance or health.”She was also accused of exerting control over players’ personal lives while living in the same apartment complex. The accusations included knocking on a player’s door at night and inviting herself inside; favoring some players by inviting them over for coffee and biscuits; restricting players from using the pool during the afternoon; and discouraging them from lifting weights in the belief that it would make them too “bulky.”Pauw vigorously defended herself at Friday’s news conference.“If there’s one thing that I don’t do, it is body shaming,” she said. “There is no scale in my dressing room, there’s no fat percentages taken.”“What is the standard?” Pauw said plaintively. “Can you not educate players in getting the best out of themselves with something that is technically just coaching?”No one would have complained if she were a male coach, Pauw said.“As a female coach, you’re not safe in your coaching,” she said. “You’re not safe to do your job. There’s double standards here.”The World Cup begins in three months. Farrelly and Pauw are looking ahead, seeking repair and renewal.Pauw said that Farrelly “trusts me; she trusts the truth.”Farrelly appears more wary. She said she was cautious about playing for a coach accused of abuse, even if it was not sexual wrongdoing.“I think it’s just going to be time for us to build trust and stuff like that,” Farrelly said. She took a risk, a leap of faith, she said, hoping the Irish national team would be a healthy environment for her. “It’s an ongoing thing, I think.” More

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      Ali Krieger Is Calling It a Career. She Wants Wins on Her Way Out.

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      Krieger, 38, will retire after one final season with Gotham F.C. in the N.W.S.L. She is confident it will go better than the last one.Since it began almost two decades ago, Ali Krieger’s soccer career has taken her more places than she can remember: dozens of countries, three World Cups and at least two operating rooms.But this year her career will come to an end, but not before a final challenge that will be a far cry from the glory of lifting league and World Cup trophies. Before she calls it quits, Krieger, 38, wants to turn around her club team, Gotham F.C. of the National Women’s Soccer League, after a season she would prefer to forget.“It was terrible,” Krieger said of last season, her first with the club. “I don’t think I’d ever been on a team in last place.”Last season’s champion, the Portland Thorns, and the regular-season winner, OL Reign, are the more likely candidates for success in the new N.W.S.L. season, which opens this weekend. But Krieger, a defender, said she was determined to help turn around Gotham after a year in which the team started 4-8, fired its coach and then didn’t win again. Ten games. Nine losses. No fun.“We were so unhappy because we didn’t understand our roles and responsibilities,” Krieger said. “No one really knew what we were supposed to be doing out on the field.”Krieger said her penultimate N.W.S.L. season was “terrible.” Her final one starts this weekend.Ashley Landis/Associated PressIn an interview last week, she said that she was optimistic that this year would be better and that a revival could be accomplished under the team’s new Spanish coach, Juan Carlos Amorós.“I don’t say this lightly,” Krieger said. “I have played for some of the best coaches in the world. He is the ultimate package. I’ve never seen so many players this happy, whether they are playing every minute or not.“Everyone has an understanding of the ‘why.’ Why you do every little thing in training or in your specific position on the field.”Gotham scored a league-low 16 goals in its 22 games last season, and no individual player had more than three — not a recipe for success. To address that glaring weakness, the team added Lynn Williams, who has scored 15 times for the women’s national team, up front. But Krieger said scoring responsibility does not rest solely on the strikers, and the team also added defender Kelley O’Hara and midfielder Allie Long, two more players with deep national team experience. They, and Krieger, should give the team a little more organization and a little more connection up the field.That said, Krieger admitted, “Adding Lynn Williams to any squad, you are 100 percent better.”No matter how her final season turns out, Krieger said she was confident the N.W.S.L., which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, was on the right path after a season marred by a sprawling abuse scandal that affected multiple clubs.“It’s definitely better,” she said. “Now we have sponsorships and ownerships and club officials who actually care. We’re not considered a charity anymore. This is a business.”While acknowledging the pinnacle of her career had been being a part of World Cup-winning teams in 2015 and 2019, Krieger said, “I’m a club over country girl.” One of her most memorable moments, she said, came in her first season in Europe, winning the Champions League and the treble with a German team then known as F.F.C. Frankfurt.“I didn’t realize that it was that important at the time,” Krieger said of her early club successes. “I had never really watched a lot of European women’s teams play. I could not just pop online and watch the Bundesliga.”There is plenty from the European model, she said, that could be valuable for the N.W.S.L., including an emphasis on developing the next generation of talent.Krieger during her Bundesliga years, when she helped Frankfurt win the league, cup and Champions League treble.Joern Pollex/Bongarts/Getty Images“I played with 15- and 16-year-olds,” she said. “I can remember Svenja Huth” — now a mainstay of the German national team — “she was 16 playing in her first Champions League game in front of me.“That model is something we could hopefully get to in the future. I don’t know if we have the infrastructure at every single club to do that just yet, but we’re getting there.”The on-field style of European play is different as well, she said. American teams often rely on an advantage of athleticism, and pace and pressure, rather than on a technical approach.“In Europe, players are very technical and skillful,” Krieger said. “They tend to play smarter, not harder. We’re trying to bring that kind of mentality here. Just kicking it long and running, high-pressing constantly, is not always going to be the best style.“Our younger players have the technical ability and the skill set to really do both. It’s exciting to see the future coming and mixing the two styles.”For Krieger, retirement will mean more time with her growing family — she married her former national teammate Ashlyn Harris in 2019, and the couple have two children, ages 2 and 8 months — and possibly a place on the board of trustees for her alma mater, Penn State.Krieger and Ashlyn Harris with their daughter, Sloane, last season. They also have a son. Ira L. Black/Corbis, via Getty ImagesBut that will come after one last season. After that, she said, she will be happy to leave the next steps — and the battles for more wins, safer workplaces and equal pay — to players coming up behind her.“We had to fight tooth and nail,” she said of the struggles of players of her era and earlier ones. “To even have a voice, we had to win. That sparked a different mentality in our generation. We were a bunch of psychos out there. I don’t know if I’ve seen that type of urgency yet from the younger players because they were brought up in a different time.“It’s not better or worse. But that mentality piece is the next step to create the winning way that we have paved for them. In order for them to continue to win, that mentality, that urgency, determination and grit will have to be instilled. Daily.” More

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      Women’s Soccer Bans Ex-Coaches and Fines Teams After Misconduct Report

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      Findings released in December revealed a number of issues throughout the league, including several instances of sexual and emotional abuse.The National Women’s Soccer League on Monday permanently banned four former coaches, suspended other league officials, and fined several teams, following a report last month that detailed alleged abuse and misconduct across the league.Paul Riley, a former North Carolina Courage coach; Rory Dames, a former Chicago Red Stars coach; Richie Burke, a former Washington Spirit coach; and Christy Holly, a former Racing Louisville F.C. coach, were permanently banned from the league for alleged misconduct ranging from inappropriate comments to, in the case of Holly, groping a player.The Red Stars were fined $1.5 million, and Portland Thorns F.C. were fined $1 million for failure to properly act on allegations of misconduct.Craig Harrington, the former Utah Royal F.C. coach, and Alyse LaHue, the former general manager of Gotham F.C., each received two-year suspensions from the league. Harrington was found to have “made inappropriate sexual and objectifying comments,” and LaHue was found to have sent players inappropriate messages, the N.W.S.L. report said.The league said in a statement on Monday that the sweeping disciplinary actions were based on a 128-page report released in December. The report, a joint effort organized by the N.W.S.L. and its players’ union, revealed a number of disturbing problems throughout the league, including instances of sexual abuse, unwanted sexual advances, emotional abuse, racist remarks, and retaliation against players who complained about how they were treated.“Players from marginalized backgrounds, or with the least job security, were often targets of misconduct,” the report said. “At the same time, these players faced the greatest barriers to speaking out about or obtaining redress for what they experienced.”Jessica Berman, the league’s commissioner, said in a statement that the “corrective action” announced on Monday was “appropriate and necessary.”“The league will continue to prioritize implementing and enhancing the policies, programs and systems that put the health and safety of our players first,” Berman said. “These changes will require leadership, accountability, funding and a willingness to embrace this new way of conducting business.”Last month’s report is similar to another released in October, from an investigation led by Sally Q. Yates, a former deputy attorney general, that detailed “systemic” verbal abuse and sexual misconduct by women’s soccer coaches and found that officials in the United States Soccer Federation, the National Women’s Soccer League and throughout American soccer had failed to act over the years on complaints from players.Holly, while coaching Louisville, groped one of his players and sent her inappropriate text messages, according to the investigations. On one occasion, Holly invited a player to his home to watch video of a game, but instead masturbated in front of her and showed her pornography, the investigations found.The investigations also found that Riley, who was fired from the North Carolina Courage in 2021, used his position to try to coerce at least three players into sexual relationships. One player said Riley made sexual advances toward her on several occasions, according to the reports.Dames, who resigned from the Chicago Red Stars in 2021, was accused by the women’s soccer star Christen Press of “verbal and emotional abuse,” the N.W.S.L. report said. The investigation led by Yates also found that he had created a “sexualized team environment” at a Chicago youth club that “crossed the line to sexual relationships in multiple cases, though those relationships may have begun after the age of consent.”The N.W.S.L. report said that several players credibly reported that Burke “verbally and emotionally abused players,” and “used racial slurs, made racially insensitive and offensive jokes.”Riley, Dames, Burke, Holly, Harrington and the Portland Thorns did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.Kelly Hoffman, a lawyer for LaHue, said in an email on Monday night that “Ms. LaHue continues to deny the allegations made against her. Notwithstanding the issues presented in her case, she supports the N.W.S.L. in its efforts towards corrective action.”A spokesman for the Chicago Red Stars said in an email on Monday night that the team was aware of the disciplinary action and that it was “working with the league in a cooperative manner to satisfy the fine.”The investigations led by the N.W.S.L. and Yates highlighted reports in 2021 by The Athletic and The Washington Post that described accusations of sexual and verbal abuse against coaches in the women’s league. Those reports led to public protests by players and the resignations or firings of league executives. Weeks after the reports of alleged sexual and verbal abuse, five coaches in the league were linked to the allegations.As part of Monday’s disciplinary actions, four others teams — OL Reign, Gotham F.C., Racing Louisville F.C. and North Carolina Courage — were fined amounts ranging from $50,000 to $200,000 for failure to act on allegations of misconduct.Six other league officials were told that any future employment with the league would depend on taking part in a training, “acknowledging wrongdoing and accepting personal responsibility for inappropriate conduct” and “demonstrating a sincere commitment to correcting behavior.”Two of the six officials were Vera Pauw, a former coach of the Houston Dash, and Farid Benstiti, a former coach of the OL Reign. The N.W.S.L. report said Pauw and Benstiti, “shamed players for their weight.”In a statement after the N.W.S.L. report was released in December, Pauw said she wanted to “refute every allegation” made against her in the report. Benstiti could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday night.April Rubin More

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      Mana Shim Will Lead US Soccer Task Force on Abuse Reforms

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      Mana Shim’s revelations of sexual abuse by her coach helped drive a reckoning in women’s soccer. Her new job at U.S. Soccer should position her to direct change from inside the federation.Mana Shim hesitates to describe her new position as her dream job, she said, because working to root out abuse in soccer is “not something that anyone hopes there needs to be a position for.”But when U.S. Soccer’s president approached her in October about joining the federation as the leader of a new player safety committee, a job that will give her a leading role in shaping new policies to protect people from the kind of abuse she had endured as a player, Shim said she couldn’t help but feel as though she had found her calling.“I feel like this is my life’s work,” Shim said in an interview on Monday morning, just after she announced her new role on social media.I have a new job: I’m going to work at U.S. Soccer as the chair of its new Participant Safety Taskforce. We still have so much work to do! LFG.Here’s my full statement: pic.twitter.com/wtj2BrMr8f— Mana Shim (@meleanashim) October 31, 2022
      Shim will join U.S. Soccer as the chair of what the federation is calling its participant safety task force. The committee will report directly to the federation’s most senior leaders and is part of its continuing effort to digest the revelations and implement the recommendations detailed in a report into what was described by its lead investigator, Sally Q. Yates, as the “systemic” abuse of women and girls in American soccer.Among the details in the Yates report were the repeated efforts of players, including Shim, to raise concerns about abuse at the hands of coaches and the persistent failures of organizations like U.S. Soccer, the governing body for the sport in America, and the National Women’s Soccer League, in which Shim once played, to do enough to prevent it.In her new role, Shim, 31, will direct a committee of 25 to 30 people including not only players and coaches but also psychologists, trainers and team doctors. The hope, Shim said, is that such a diversity of experiences will ensure that all viewpoints are taken into account as U.S. Soccer creates pathways, educational programs and reporting systems to eradicate abuse in the sport.Shim admitted on Monday that the work would not be easy, or fast. But she also said she had decided the position was a natural fit for the skills she “intentionally acquired” in the years since she ended her career as a professional player: a law degree from the University of Hawaii; work on sexual abuse cases as a member of the public defender’s office in Honolulu; communications strategies as she worked to get her story out, and that of other players; and even time as an assistant coach at San Jose State, where she gained a new understanding of the power coaches can have over young players.All of her experiences, including her own painful and personal ones, had given her a holistic view of abuse, its forms, its victims and even its perpetrators.“Just as far as what I can offer, and what I care about,” Shim said of the new role, “it really feels like the perfect fit for where I am in my life and how I want to contribute in the world.”Still, she acknowledged that the idea of going to work for a federation that had failed her as a player was not a decision she had made lightly. Shim said she weighed those concerns, and the perceptions others might have of her choice, before agreeing to join. She will report directly to U.S. Soccer’s president, Cindy Parlow Cone, and its new chief executive, JT Batson.“It wasn’t a question of, ‘Is this a good idea?’” Shim said. “Because I do feel like it’s pretty obvious that U.S. Soccer has the power to make meaningful change in the sport. And if that’s my goal, then there’s no better place to be.“There’s always that worry, and apprehension, when it comes to stepping inside, because then you lose the power to question and criticize, and that was obviously something I was thinking about. But I do feel like because of the way I was approached, I feel like I will really be supported in this work in the way I do it.”Molly Levinson, who worked with Shim and others when they went public with their stories of abuse, said it was U.S. Soccer’s responsibility to ensure that the recommendations of the Yates report were enacted. Among the recommendations were the creation of a public list of individuals suspended or barred by U.S. Soccer, better vetting of coaches in the federation’s licensing process, mandatory investigations into accusations of abuse, and clear policies and rules about acceptable behavior and conduct.“When it comes down to it,” Levinson said, “the U.S. Soccer board of directors and the sponsors of the organization have the final say in what the organization does moving forward to make change. And the hope is they are committed to do that.”Shim acknowledged that she expected her education — legal, administrative and otherwise — to continue. But on Monday, she was just eager to get started, because “I know this is happening to other people.” She still hears new stories every week, from former teammates, from opponents she had never met, from strangers.“It’s not just my story,” Shim said. “Talking to other people, professional players as well as youth players and college players and — it’s just something I can’t get away from. And not in a bad way but in a way that inspires me.”“I’ve already experienced that rewarding feeling” of helping others, she added. “I feel like more needs to be done, obviously, which is why I’m here.” More

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      Portland Thorns Win NWSL Championship to End Turbulent Season

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      Portland won its third championship in the league’s 10th season, in a year of upheaval amid an abuse scandal in the sport.WASHINGTON — To end a tumultuous season played under the dark cloud of an abuse scandal, the Portland Thorns beat the Kansas City Current to win the National Women’s Soccer League championship Saturday night, showing resilience as a franchise that has seen so much — and has weathered so much.On a cold, clear night at Audi Field in front of more than 17,000 fans, the Thorns won, 2-0, to clinch their third N.W.S.L. title in the league’s 10th season, dominating the game from the start. Forward Sophia Smith scored the Thorns’ first goal just four minutes in. Portland’s victory ended the championships hopes of the Current, an expansion team that was having a phenomenal year after finishing 2021 in last place.Throughout the years, the Thorns — one of the league’s original teams — have been there to see the league grow in popularity and visibility. This year’s playoff games have had record attendance and Saturday’s championship game was the first one shown on prime-time television.Yet the league still struggles with sponsorship. So much so that league officials used halftime to make a pitch on the broadcast for more support, tying the N.W.S.L.’s efforts to move past the abuse scandal to the pursuit of growing women’s sports.“We know there is a lot of work left to have a safe and sustainable league,” N.W.S.L. Commissioner Jessica Berman said. “As we celebrate this historic moment, we will make our league a better place for players.”Meghann Burke, the executive director of the N.W.S.L. players’ association, added: “We need sponsors and supporters to help make change happen.”Amid the constant tumult within the league, the Thorns have in some ways been an example of what women’s soccer can be, with packed games and loyal fans, only to be at the center of the scandal that has rocked all levels of the women’s game. Their former coach’s sexual misconduct helped spark a leaguewide investigation into systematic abuse.The investigation showed that girls and women get used to being yelled at, demeaned and sexualized at some point in their careers and often stay silent out of fear of getting benched or kicked off a team. That includes women playing at the top levels of the game, and also youth players.Amid everything, the Thorns players brought Portland yet another N.W.S.L. championship, leaping on each other with screams and hugs when the game was done.The team’s owner, Merritt Paulson, was not on hand to celebrate with them. Even if he were at the field, he would have not been invited to join them. In the wake of the sexual abuse report, he stepped down as chief executive of the Thorns, and players have since asked him to sell the team. More

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      U.S. Curling Chief Resigns in Furor Over Handling of Past Abuse Complaints

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      Jeff Plush, the chief executive of curling’s national federation, stepped down after athletes complained about his role in failing to address abuse in women’s soccer when he worked there.Jeff Plush, the chief executive of U.S.A. Curling, resigned on Friday, weeks after athletes and clubs in his sport began calling for him to step down because they no longer trusted him to keep athletes safe.Earlier this month, it was made public that Plush, who had been the chief executive of the National Women’s Soccer League from 2015 to 2017, did not cooperate with an investigation into widespread abuse within that league. An investigative report said that Plush mishandled abuse accusations while he was head of the soccer league, allowing coaches to keep their jobs or transfer teams, though they had been accused of sexual and verbal harassment, and sexual coercion.“Inaction and not speaking out against abuse has no place in our sport, and we hope Jeff realizes the damage that he has done to our community,” JayCee Cooper, a member of U.S.A. Curling’s diversity task force, said in a video call this week. “We have to get to a place where we can trust our leaders again.”Still, even after the release the report, Plush had the support of U.S.A. Curling’s board of directors, prompting dozens of athletes and clubs to speak out on social media against him. On Friday, the board in a statement said it had unanimously accepted Plush’s resignation.“We see you. We hear you. We care about you,” the board said in the statement. “Our priority is to rebuild trust. To start that process, today we lead with action.”Dean Gemmell, a former national champion who is based in New Jersey, was named interim chief executive.“I’m convinced curling can be a force for good, and when the people in this sport work together we can make great things happen,” he said in a statement.The resignation came hours before the women’s soccer league’s national championship game on Saturday, pitting the Portland Thorns against the Kansas City Current. The Thorns, one of the most successful teams in the league, was a focus of the report, which found the club had shielded a coach accused of abuse and sought to thwart investigators in the inquiry, led by Sally Q. Yates, a former high-ranking Justice Department official.Merritt Paulson, the owner of the Thorns, agreed to step down as chief executive of the club, while not indicating whether he would sell the team, as many players called on him to do. The team said in a statement he would not attend the championship game. More

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      The Portland Thorns Become the Face of a Scandal in Women’s Soccer

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      The Portland Thorns were once the pride of U.S. women’s soccer. But after a report said the club shielded a disgraced coach and thwarted an abuse investigation, even the players are demanding a housecleaning.Everybody knew Paul Riley was a problem.The first tangible sign came after the 2014 season, when players on the women’s soccer team he coached, the Portland Thorns, complained about his behavior in an anonymous survey.“We got used to being called dumb, stupid, slow, idiotic, retarded,” one player wrote. Another said, “Being subject to verbal abuse and sexism shouldn’t exist in this league by any coach.”The comments were distributed to executives throughout the National Women’s Soccer League and the United States Soccer Federation, which effectively ran the N.W.S.L. at the time. No one did anything about them, according to a withering report on abuse in women’s soccer. Riley did not respond to messages asking for comment when the report was released on Monday.The indifference of Sunil Gulati, who was the president of U.S. Soccer, demonstrates how the soccer world thought of the Thorns. Gulati told investigators that while the surveys contained important feedback, he did not remember reading the comments from Thorns players.Why not? He suspected, he told investigators, “that he overlooked them because he assumed Portland was squared away.”The report — conducted by Sally Q. Yates, the former deputy U.S. attorney general, at the behest of U.S. Soccer — issued a clarion call for dramatic change throughout women’s soccer, from the professional ranks down to the youth game, and within every organization that oversees the sport.But nowhere is that call louder than in the place that calls itself Soccer City USA, where the Thorns seemingly embody both the best and worst of women’s soccer in America.Becky Sauerbrunn suggested this week that the Thorns’ owner and others should be forced out of the N.W.S.L.Andy Lyons/Getty ImagesMerritt Paulson, the owner of the Thorns, said on Tuesday that he was temporarily “stepping away” from the team’s decision making, as would two other Thorns executives. But Paulson gave no indication that he planned to sell the team, even as one of his most team’s popular players, the defender Becky Sauerbrunn, called for him and others to be forced from the league.“You have failed in your stewardship,” Sauerbrunn said in a conference call with reporters. “And it’s my opinion that every owner and executive and U.S. Soccer official who has repeatedly failed the players, and failed to protect the players, who have hidden behind legalities, and who have not participated fully in these investigations, should be gone.”The N.W.S.L. has been on precarious financial footing since its founding a decade ago, but the Thorns had for years been viewed as a beacon of what women’s professional sports in the United States could be. In the same season in which players reported that Riley called them dumb, the team set a record by drawing more than 19,000 fans to a game. Some of the world’s best players competed for the Thorns in front of the league’s most rabid supporters, and others, including national team stars like Sauerbrunn, Lindsey Horan and Crystal Dunn, found ways to join the team. The Thorns won two league championships, and went to the playoffs almost every season.And while some N.W.S.L. teams were run on shoestring budgets, with players provided substandard housing and inadequate training facilities, the Thorns always presented themselves as a first-class operation, professional in every sense of the word.As his two Oregon teams — Paulson also owns a men’s team, the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer — won games and titles and packed Providence Park, Paulson cultivated a reputation as a fan- and media-friendly populist, the kind of owner who would banter on Twitter and shake hands on game day. That image, and his team’s commercial and on-field successes, made him a serious player in American soccer — and one with powerful supporters.The responses of Merritt Paulson and the Thorns to investigations into abuse are also under the microscope.Diego Diaz/Icon Sportswire, via Getty ImagesEven after some revelations about the Thorns’s inaction with Riley, and after the Timbers were fined by M.L.S. for failing to disclose accusations of domestic violence against a player, Paulson was praised by Don Garber, the commissioner of M.L.S. and a U.S. Soccer board member.“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country, if not throughout North America,” Garber said in February. “I know that he’s very passionate about his teams, both the Portland Timbers and the Portland Thorns, and is going to cooperate in anything that is being reviewed.”Garber and the M.L.S. did not respond to a request for comment.That faith and confidence may be shattered by allegations that the Thorns ignored complaints of sexual and verbal abuse against Riley, covered for him despite firing him for his behavior and encouraged his moves to new teams, and then worked to thwart Yates’s investigators.For a year, Thorns fans have been torn about how to straddle the line between supporting the players on a team run by people they believe are failing them, with some still attending games but boycotting merchandise and concessions stands, and others simply not going.“Many friends and volunteering colleagues stopped attending games long ago,” said Rachel Greenough, 39, who is a member of the Rose City Riveters, a Thorns supporters group that has called for Paulson to sell. “They felt like they could not be in that stadium because it felt like an emotional burden they didn’t want to take on, or they didn’t want to give money to the organization. I totally understand that.”The team’s inaction over player complaints about Riley, and the steps several Thorns executives — including Paulson — took to help him find another N.W.S.L. job, cannot be blamed on ignorance. As the report makes clear, the team knew everything.The Thorns, in fact, dismissed Riley after the 2015 season, days after a player, Meleana Shim, made a formal complaint to the team that Riley had sexually harassed her, presided over a toxic workplace and coerced her and another player to kiss in front of him.That decision was made, however, only after years of complaints. Riley’s sexual misconduct was an “open secret” by then — known by players, a coach, an owner and an assistant general manager for another team, according to the report. Players complained in surveys. The Thorns’ athletic trainer told her superiors that Riley went against medical recommendations and endangered players. Riley also had multiple sexual relationships with players throughout his career as a coach.Altogether, the report painted a picture of a coach who crossed every line imaginable and whose conduct was reported to those in charge, and yet his contract was only terminated after his team missed the playoffs for the first time. The Thorns then actively assisted Riley with getting another job in the N.W.S.L., with the Western New York Flash.The Thorns did not say publicly that Riley’s contract had been terminated after a formal complaint and a human resources investigation that substantiated many of the complaints. They publicly wished him well. When a Flash executive spoke to Gavin Wilkinson, then the Thorns general manager, Wilkinson told him Riley was “put in a bad position by the player” and that Wilkinson “would hire him in a heartbeat.” Reached by phone, Wilkinson declined to comment.Riley speaking to the media after a Thorns practice in 2014.Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian, via Associated PressRiley coached six more seasons on the strength of that recommendation.In the year since the stories of Shim and Sinead Farrelly, a former Thorns player who said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with Riley, were made public, leading to his firing by the North Carolina Courage, immense scrutiny has been focused on the Thorns front office.Besides endorsing Riley, Wilkinson jokingly called a player a demeaning name and was critical of another’s sexuality, according to what players told investigators. Wilkinson denied both claims, but he was placed on administrative leave by the Thorns last October. Three months later he was reinstated.This summer The Oregonian reported on “an atmosphere of disrespect and intimidation toward women” at the Thorns cultivated by Mike Golub, the team president. Cindy Parlow Cone, the president of U.S. Soccer and a former national team player, told investigators that while she was coaching the Thorns in 2013, Golub asked her, “What’s on your bucket list besides sleeping with me?”When Cone informed Paulson, the Thorns owner, about the incident months later, he told Cone that he wished she had told him about it when it occurred. According to Paulson, Golub is currently undergoing “remediation” and was not allowed to speak to investigators for the report. Golub did not respond to messages seeking comment.Both Golub and Wilkinson were “relieved of their duties” by the Thorns on Wednesday. The responses by Paulson and the Thorns to investigations into abuse are also under the microscope. Last year Paulson pledged transparency and to cooperate with any and all investigations. But according to the Yates report, he and the team did anything but that.“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 said.There could be more revelations to come, as a joint investigation into abuse by the N.W.S.L. and its players’ association is expected to be completed this year. The Thorns could win their third championship later this month, but some players, at least, would not see it simply as another success by the sport’s best-run team.“The jerseys that we’re wearing — it’s hard to be happy in them,” said Dunn on Wednesday. “It’s hard to find joy in wearing it.”Andrew Das More