Abuse in the NWSL and the Yates Report

Timeline

1. Aug–Sep 2021Several NWSL coaches depart amid complaints; the Washington Spirit fires Richie Burke.
2. Sep 30, 2021The Athletic publishes former players' allegations against Paul Riley; the North Carolina Courage fire him.
3. Oct 1, 2021The NWSL cancels the weekend's games; Commissioner Lisa Baird resigns.
4. Oct 2021U.S. Soccer commissions Sally Yates's independent investigation; players pause games in protest.
5. Oct 3, 2022U.S. Soccer releases the Yates Report.
6. Dec 14, 2022The NWSL and players' union release a joint investigation finding ongoing misconduct at more than half the clubs.
7. Jan 2023The NWSL permanently bans Riley, Rory Dames, Christy Holly and Burke, and fines clubs.

The ethical issues

• Institutional failures: complaints reported and not acted on.
• Silence and reputation: clubs describing departures as non-renewals.
• Power imbalance: coaches controlling players' careers in a small league.
• Owners' accountability for decisions to rehire or recommend coaches.
• Player voice and the role of the union in reform.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Players	Safety, dignity and a working environment free of abuse.
Coaches accused of misconduct	Due process, and accountability where findings are made.
Club owners and executives	Responsibility for hiring and responding to complaints.
NWSL	Credibility, governance and the league's future.
U.S. Soccer	Its oversight role and its failures to act.
Youth soccer	The culture that normalizes abusive coaching.

The case

The National Women’s Soccer League launched in 2013, backed by U.S. Soccer. For its first eight years it had no formal anti-harassment policy.^[1][5] Coaches in a small, closely connected league held great power over players’ careers, contracts and playing time.

During 2021, a series of coaches left their jobs amid complaints. The Washington Spirit fired Richie Burke after former players described verbal abuse. Racing Louisville fired Christy Holly for cause.^[1] On September 30, 2021, The Athletic published an investigation in which former players, including Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim, described sexual coercion and verbal abuse by Paul Riley, then coach of the North Carolina Courage. They said they had reported his conduct years earlier. Riley denied the allegations. The Courage fired him the same day.^[1][3]

The next day, the league postponed its weekend games and Commissioner Lisa Baird resigned. In the following weeks, players paused matches to link arms in protest. The players’ union demanded reforms, including an independent investigation of every club.^[1][4]

Background

U.S. Soccer commissioned the investigation on October 2, 2021, two days after The Athletic’s report.^[2] The final report ran to 173 pages, or 319 with footnotes and appendices.^[2] It described how warnings moved through the system without action. It said that complaints about Riley from U.S. national team players went to the federation’s president and the national team coach, and were forwarded to senior federation and league officials, without action.^[2] It also said that the Thorns’ internal investigative report left out significant details that players had reported.^[2]

According to the report, players who reported abuse were traded, released, threatened or otherwise retaliated against. Some asked to remain anonymous for fear of further retaliation.^[2] It also said that the Thorns’ then-general manager endorsed Riley for a new head coaching job with the Western New York Flash after his exit from Portland.^[2]

The rules and governance

Several bodies had overlapping authority and, according to the report, each assumed someone else would act. Clubs employed coaches; the league set standards and could discipline; U.S. Soccer licensed coaches and sanctioned the league; and the U.S. Center for SafeSport had authority over abuse complaints in Olympic-movement sports.^[2][5] The report recommended that SafeSport share its findings with the federation.^[2]

The report also described resistance to investigation. It said the Thorns interfered with access to witnesses and used legal arguments to limit access to documents. It said the Red Stars took more than eight months to produce documents, and that Racing Louisville refused to provide documents and used a non-disclosure agreement to keep employees from answering questions.^[2] The NWSL commissioner who took office in 2022, Jessica Berman, stressed the importance of the parallel investigation by the league and the players’ union.^[2]

The Yates investigation

U.S. Soccer hired Sally Yates, a former acting U.S. Attorney General, to lead an independent investigation. Her team reviewed more than 89,000 documents and conducted more than 200 interviews.^[2][5] The report, released on October 3, 2022, concluded that abuse and sexual misconduct in the NWSL were “systemic” and that they were “rooted in a deeper culture in women’s soccer, beginning in youth leagues, that normalizes verbally abusive coaching and blurs boundaries between coaches and players.”^[1][6]

The report focused on three coaches: Riley, Rory Dames of the Chicago Red Stars, and Holly. It described players’ complaints, the clubs’ and league’s handling of them, and how each coach kept working after reports.^[2][5] It found that the Portland Thorns had investigated Riley in 2015 and parted with him but publicly described his departure as a non-renewal and thanked him, and that he was later hired by another club. It found that U.S. Soccer and league leaders had received complaints about Riley and Dames and had not acted.^[2][5]

Consequences

In December 2022, a separate joint investigation by the league and the players’ union found ongoing misconduct at more than half of the clubs.^[7] The joint team, run by the law firms Covington and Weil, conducted about 100 interviews of current and former players and about 90 of club staff. It also held 15 interviews with league leaders and staff and 8 with U.S. Soccer personnel, gathered evidence from players at every active and former club, and reviewed about 200,000 documents.^[7] It found that misconduct “has occurred at the vast majority of NWSL clubs at various times, from the earliest years of the League to the present.” Beyond sexual misconduct, it found that club staff “made inappropriate sexual remarks to players, mocked players’ bodies, pressured players to lose unhealthy amounts of weight” and retaliated against players who reported concerns.^[7]

The joint report traced the silence to the league’s precarious early years. Players “were told to be grateful, loyal, and acquiescent, even as they were not afforded the resources or respect due to professional athletes,” and said this dissuaded them from reporting.^[7] Because U.S. Soccer, the league and the clubs “were not clear on which entity held the ultimate responsibility,” enforcement and investigations “fell through the cracks.” That allowed people “to turn a blind eye or shift blame.”^[7] It found that players from marginalized backgrounds or with the least job security were often targets and faced the greatest barriers to speaking out.^[7] Its recommendations were systemic rather than disciplinary. It noted that the league had already updated its anti-harassment policy, begun requiring background checks of coaches and staff, and planned a dedicated player-safety position. It warned that change “will need to last beyond one commissioner.”^[7] In January 2023, the NWSL permanently banned Riley, Dames, Holly and Burke from the league, suspended other staff, and fined several clubs.^[8] Portland Thorns owner Merritt Paulson, whom the Yates Report criticized, announced in December 2022 that he would sell the club.^[1]

Aftermath

Along with the bans, the league fined several clubs, including the Chicago Red Stars $1.5 million and the Portland Thorns $1 million.^[2] In May 2023, USA Today reported that SafeSport had lifted the federation’s suspension of Dames’s coaching license while continuing to investigate him. The federation’s president said SafeSport had refused to share its findings or reasoning, contrary to the report’s recommendations.^[2]

The core dilemma

The abuse was reported, repeatedly, to people with power to act. Why didn’t they? And how should accountability be distributed between abusers, the officials who heard complaints and moved on, and the institutions that hired coaches with known histories?

Competing values

• Player safety vs. institutional reputation: quietly ending a coach’s tenure protects a club’s image but endangers players elsewhere.
• Due process vs. protection: fair procedures for the accused against swift action to protect players.
• Owners’ property rights vs. accountability: whether owners who failed should lose their clubs.
• Competitive pressure vs. welfare: win-focused cultures that tolerate abusive coaching.

Strongest arguments

For sweeping accountability: the failures were repeated, documented and known at senior levels. Bans for coaches are not enough; executives and owners who enabled them must face consequences, or the incentives will not change.

For caution: many people mentioned in the reports were not accused of abuse themselves. Penalties should match individual responsibility and follow fair procedures, or safeguarding will lose legitimacy.

Applying the frameworks

Ethics of care

The care lens focuses on players, many of them young, whose careers depended on coaches who abused their power. It asks why reports were not heard and acted on, and emphasizes listening to those harmed, protecting reporters from retaliation, and building cultures in which care is part of coaching.

Kantian (duty)

A Kantian lens condemns using players as means to coaches’ gratification or control, and holds executives responsible for failing clear duties to protect them. Misleading public statements, such as describing a firing as a non-renewal, compounded the failure.

Rights

A rights lens emphasizes players’ rights to a safe workplace, to report without retaliation, and to fair process for everyone accused. The report’s findings on obstruction and the players’ union’s role show how collective rights support individual protection.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are a club president in 2015 when players report a head coach’s sexual coercion and verbal abuse. The stakeholders include the players, other staff, the coach, the league, U.S. Soccer and future employers. The codes in play are employment law, league policies (at the time, none on harassment) and your duty to your players.
2. Gather facts. What exactly have players reported? Who else might be at risk, including at the coach’s future clubs?
3. Test options. Options: (a) part ways quietly; (b) dismiss the coach and report the findings to the league and federation; (c) also tell the players what you found and what you did. Weigh legal risk and reputation against the duty to protect players everywhere.
4. Check codes and law. Are you shaping the public story to protect the club? Would your choice protect players at the coach’s next club?
5. Decide and document. Record the complaint, the investigation, the findings and to whom they were sent.
6. Communicate and follow up. Communicate honestly with the players and league, and support creating policies and reporting channels across the league.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: the Yates and joint investigation findings; the lifetime bans and fines; the leadership departures.
• Contested: whether other executives and owners were held sufficiently accountable; how effective the reforms have been.

Why this case matters

The NWSL case shows how abuse persists through institutional silence, and how players, journalists and independent investigators can force change. It is a central case for safeguarding in professional women’s sport.

Key terms

Duty of care

The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.

Whistleblowing

Disclosure of wrongdoing in the public interest by someone inside or close to an organization: a moral safety valve.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Controls

Concrete safeguards that make ethics operational: training, disclosure forms, testing, monitoring, hotlines. Ethics needs principles, process and controls.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. Yates found that complaints reached club, league and federation leaders who did not act. Why do institutions fail to act on credible reports?
2. Several coaches were hired by other clubs after earlier complaints. What responsibility do former employers have to warn others?
3. Should owners who mishandled complaints be forced to sell their clubs? What standard should apply?
4. Yates wrote that the abuse was rooted in a culture beginning in youth soccer. How can a sport change a culture that starts long before the professional level?
5. How should leagues balance the rights of accused coaches with player safety?

Sources

1. Sexual harassment in the NWSL — Wikipedia
2. Yates Report — Wikipedia
3. 'This guy has a pattern': Amid institutional failure, former NWSL players accuse prominent coach of sexual coercion — The Athletic
4. NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird resigns amid misconduct allegations leveled at Paul Riley — ESPN
5. Independent Investigation: Women's Professional Soccer Report (Yates Report) — King & Spalding
6. Abuse in the U.S. women's pro soccer league was systemic, a report finds — NPR
7. Report of the NWSL and NWSLPA Joint Investigative Team — NWSL / NWSLPA (via The New York Times)
8. NWSL permanently bans four coaches, including Paul Riley — CBS Sports