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U.S. Soccer misconduct investigation overview:
- Who: U.S. Soccer announced its plans to implement all 12 recommendations former U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates made.
- Why: The recommendations come after an independent investigation into allegations of past abusive behavior and sexual misconduct in women’s professional soccer.
- Where: U.S. Soccer is based in the United States.
U.S. Soccer announced its plans to implement all 12 of the recommendations former U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates made following her independent investigation into allegations of past abusive behavior and sexual misconduct in women’s professional soccer.
The U.S. Soccer website posted the announcement Jan. 30.
In it, the soccer federation outlined its next steps for implementing the recommendations, adding they were critical to its “commitment to ensuring everyone in the sport has a safe place to learn, compete and grow.”
“Immediately after we released Sally Yates’s independent report, our Board and staff got to work on plans to implement the report’s recommendations and advance safeguarding initiatives that build a culture of participant-centered safety and trust across our sport,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone says in the press release. “While we have much more work ahead, I believe the steps we’re sharing today will make our game significantly safer and I look forward to seeing it through.”
U.S. Soccer investigations revealed abuse within US organization
The recommendations come after a year in which multiple investigations into U.S. Soccer found evidence of widespread misconduct.
The investigations showed club staff engaged in sexual abuse and emotional abuse and that there had been retaliation against those who spoke up.
U.S. Soccer also says it will implement new systems for taking on Yates’ recommendations, which include actions to stop abusive coaches from moving from one team to another, a better vetting process for staff and timely investigations into allegations of abuse.
A key element of the federation’s plan is the new “Safe Soccer” program, which will redefine the processes and criteria used to determine eligibility to participate in soccer in the United States by creating a thorough vetting system that seeks to “prohibit bad actors” from participating in the sport as well as identifying high-quality participants in the sport.
“This will transform U.S. Soccer’s approach from simply ‘red-lighting’ bad actors after an incident has happened, to ‘green-lighting’ them before they begin participating in the sport, which will prevent potentially bad actors from ever having a role in soccer,” the federation says.
The U.S. Soccer’s Pro League Standards will also receive additional safeguarding protections, including requiring that each professional league and team has a player safety officer responsible for ensuring compliance with player safety standards, annual safeguarding reports, enforced employment of HR professionals in leagues, feedback surveys and the requirement that all professional leagues report any allegations of misconduct or issues of abuse to the Federation in a timely manner.
The organization described the implementation of the program as a “multiyear journey.”
Last year, U.S. Soccer and players’ unions made collective bargaining agreements that will give U.S. women’s soccer players the chance to make the same amount of money as their male counterparts.
What do you think of the U.S. Soccer misconduct investigation and subsequent announcement? Let us know in the comments!
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