NWSL boss Lisa Baird ousted for botched handling of sex allegations; FIFA investigating
With criticism roiling over the National Women’s Soccer League’s handling of multiple players’ allegations that a longtime coach sexually harassed and coerced them over the course of a dozen years, the league on Friday ousted commissioner Lisa Baird and NWSL general counsel Lisa Levine, according to published reports.
The players had lodged multiple formal complaints with the league office regarding the conduct of coach Paul Riley, according to reporting published Thursday by The Athletic. But the NWSL took no known action on the matter as those complaints piled up.
The league’s board of directors voted Friday to remove Baird and Levine from their roles, according to The Athletic’s Meg Linehan. The report that Baird and Levin had been forced out was corroborated by subsequent reporting from ESPN correspondent Jeff Carlisle.
A one-sentence NWSL statement issued around 9 p.m. Friday via Twitter said the league had “received and accepted” Baird’s resignation, with no mention of Levine.
The Athletic said it based its original report, published Thursday, on interviews with a dozen of Riley’s former players, including two — Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim — who spoke on the record for the article.
Riley was alleged to have coerced Farrelly and other players to have sex with him. The report also detailed allegations that he sent some of the women explicit photos and was manipulative, especially when it came to playing time. He also allegedly made inappropriate comments about players’ weight and sexual orientation.
The outpouring of criticism regarding the NWSL’s handling of the allegations was, and remains, intense. Stars such as Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, and former FC Kansas City star Becky Sauerbrunn made it clear they were aghast.
“Never once during this whole time was the right person protected,” Rapinoe tweeted. “Not Mana, not Sinead, not us not the players not the little girls who will become us not the big girls who already are us not any of US. ...”
Riley, 58, had coached in women’s soccer since 2006, including stints with the Portland Thorns, Long Island/New York Fury and, until they fired him on Thursday, the North Carolina Courage.
Earlier Friday, the league postponed all of this weekend’s matches, saying in part via a statement from Baird, “we have decided not to take the field this weekend to give everyone some space to reflect.”
The Kansas City NWSL club had been scheduled to play the Houston Dash on Saturday at Legions Field in Kansas City, Kan. It is unclear when that game will be made up, though indications are that it will.
On Thursday, the NWSL Players Association called for an investigation into Riley’s history. U.S. Soccer opened an investigation into the matter Friday, saying, “Player safety and respect is the paramount responsibility of every person involved in this game.”
FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, has also launched an investigation.
“Due to the severity and seriousness of the allegations being made by players, we can confirm that FIFA’s judicial bodies are actively looking into the matter and have opened a preliminary investigation,” FIFA said in a statement to The Associated Press.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 7:16 PM with the headline "NWSL boss Lisa Baird ousted for botched handling of sex allegations; FIFA investigating."