NWSL, reeling in scandal, cancels games and removes commissioner

By the time hundreds of professional women’s soccer players gathered on a videoconference Thursday night, they had all had enough.

One head coach in their league had been fired that morning, accused of coercing a player on his team into sex. His dismissal came two days after the coach of another team was fired for what one player described as threats and personal insults, and several months after the National Women’s Soccer League’s commissioner had appeared to reject, via email, a player’s effort to raise concerns about a coach’s behavior. Many of the women on the call, arranged by the union for athletes in the NWSL, had their own painful stories to share.

For two hours they discussed what to do next. Their decision came close to midnight: The player’ union would redouble its effort to force changes by asking the league to cancel the five games scheduled for this weekend.

No one could be certain what would happen if the league declined.

By morning, the players, still angry, learned the league had acceded to their request to cancel the games. And by Friday night, another target of their ire was gone: In a one-sentence statement, the league announced that its commissioner, Lisa Baird, had resigned.

The day’s announcements represented a pivotal moment: A league that is home to some of the United States’ most famous athletes — World Cup winners such as Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd — was being held to account by those stars, as well as by a much larger majority who have annual contracts that pay them $31,000 or less. The players, standing by colleagues who went public with accounts of years of mistreatment by their coaches, are demanding that the league do more to protect them from abuse, and — in a criticism aimed directly at Baird — ensure their concerns are not swept aside.

This public fury, from players increasingly comfortable with sharing their stories of abuse at work, underscored a persistent power dynamic in women’s sports: Employment tends to be less stable than in men’s leagues, and executive decisions are largely in the hands of men who own, operate and coach the teams.

On Thursday, The Athletic reported accusations that Paul Riley, who coached the North Carolina Courage to league championships in 2018 and 2019, had coerced a player into having sex with him, forced two players to kiss and then sent them unsolicited sexual pictures, and yelled at and belittled players.

The Athletic also reported that Riley lost his head coaching job with the Portland Thorns in 2015 partly because of violations of team policy, but the league allowed another team to hire Riley soon after, and the violations were never publicly revealed.

On Tuesday, the league announced that Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke — who, according to a Washington Post report in August, would “unleash a torrent of threats, criticism and personal insults” on players — had been fired and was no longer allowed to work in the NWSL.

In late August, Christy Holly, head coach of Racing Louisville, was fired for cause, according to the league, and a local television station reported that players had complained about a “toxic environment.” Farid Benstiti, head coach of the OL Reign in the Seattle area, resigned in July, and the team’s chief executive acknowledged Friday that he had asked Benstiti to step down after a player told the executive about inappropriate comments from the coach.

Those departures, all in the past three months, involved 40% of the league’s head coaches. When the season began, men occupied eight of the 10 head coaching positions.

In a statement Thursday morning and during the conference call Thursday night, the players did not refuse to play in this weekend’s games, but they made it clear that they wanted substantial changes.

Baird, the commissioner, has been the focus of much of the criticism. In April, Sinead Farrelly, a former NWSL player, wrote an email to Baird, saying that she had “experienced firsthand extremely inappropriate conduct” by Riley and that concerns Farrelly raised during a 2015 investigation into Riley by the Portland Thorns had not been thoroughly investigated.

Baird responded that the NWSL took player safety seriously but that “the initial complaint was investigated to conclusion.”

The emails were posted publicly to Twitter on Thursday by Morgan, a star player for the Orlando Pride and one of the most well-known members of the women’s national team, and appeared to contradict a statement released that day by Baird. In it, Baird implied she had just learned of the accusations against Riley from the article in The Atlantic and hailed anti-harassment policies that, Morgan suggested, she had declined to bring to bear in support of Farrelly.

“The league must accept responsibility for a process that failed to protect its own players from this abuse,” Morgan wrote.

In Friday’s announcement canceling the games, released hours before she resigned, Baird offered her own apology for the first time. “This week, and much of this season, has been incredibly traumatic for our players and staff,” she said, “and I take full responsibility for the role I have played.”

The fallout for Riley, who denied most of the allegations to The Athletic and did not respond to messages from The New York Times seeking comment, has been swift. He was fired on Thursday by the Courage, and Friday he was temporarily suspended by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit organization established by the U.S. Olympic &Paralympic Committee to protect athletes from sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Tallying the full effects of the crisis on the league will take much longer, a point made clear in the players’ statement about the cancellation of this weekend’s games. Even as they pressed for the shutdown in a moment of crisis, the players acknowledged the implications and inconveniences for their fans.

“We know that many of our fans made travel plans, scheduled the night off, or juggled commitments to attend our games and that this decision impacts you, too,” the players union said.

They know the league will continue to thrive only if the shutdown does not alienate fans.