Much of the attention paid to women’s soccer in the United States is focused on those who play for the national team and win World Cups, a group of players that includes — in Rapinoe, Morgan, Carli Lloyd and others — some of the most famous women’s athletes in the world. But the N.W.S.L. is mostly made up of their lesser-known club colleagues, players barely eking out a living playing soccer, and the precarity of their situation has made abuse difficult to tackle, players have said.
It also complicated any collective action the players wanted to undertake. Members of the women’s national team who play in the N.W.S.L. are not paid by their individual clubs, but by the United States Soccer Federation, and are therefore subject to the collective bargaining agreement signed with U.S. Soccer. According to that agreement, players may not engage in any strike or work stoppage, a clause that would also pertain to their employment in the N.W.S.L.
But the players never needed to initiate a formal work stoppage once the league, belatedly recognizing the urgency of the crisis, canceled the games instead.
The scandal had been growing for weeks. One N.W.S.L. team fired its coach at the end of August “for cause,” and another dismissed its coach earlier this week after an investigation into his treatment of his players. The incident that led to Friday’s announcement came Thursday morning, when The Athletic published an article that included allegations that Riley 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 Riley was let go from his head coaching job with the Portland Thorns, arguably the league’s most popular team, in 2015 in part because of violations of team policy but then did nothing to warn players when another team quickly rehired him.
Riley denied most of the allegations to The Athletic and did not respond to a request for comment from The New York Times. Hours after the accusations against him were published on Thursday morning, he was fired.
The players’ anger had been growing. On Tuesday, the N.W.S.L. concluded an investigation into another team, the Washington Spirit. The league did not publish a detailed report of its findings but it announced that the Spirit’s coach, Richie Burke, had been fired and would no longer be allowed to work in the N.W.S.L.
