The chief legal officer at the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) and the general counsel of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) were repeatedly confronted with allegations that coaches were abusing players, and in some cases crossing sexual lines, according to an investigation commissioned by the Soccer Federation to get a definitive look at the extent of problems in the league. 

Confronted with these allegations, the legal chiefs appeared to try to balance the interests of the Soccer Federation and the soccer league with the interests of the players, with mixed results, the report indicates. 

“Those at the NWSL and USSF in a position to correct the record stayed silent,” said the report, prepared by the law firm King & Spalding and led by Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general. “And no one at the teams, the League, or the Federation demanded better of coaches.” The 319-page report, a year in the making, was released on October 3. 

Pattern of problems

The report doesn’t focus on the role of in-house legal professionals as scandals unfolded in the league since it launched in 2013. But in its recounting of how abusive behavior persisted over years, it paints a picture of counsel trying to take allegations seriously while also trying to take into account the reputation of a league that struggled early on to find its footing. 

“In the haste to get the League off the ground, [USSF] did not put in place the infrastructure or planning necessary to support the League over the long haul,” the report said. 

In several instances, as recounted in the report, Lydia Wahlke, chief legal officer of USSF until she resigned in 2020, and Lisa Levine, general counsel of NWSL until she resigned in 2021, appeared to have balance uppermost in mind in how they treated information as it came their way.

In one example, Levine had been given a complaint in 2015 from a player with the Portland Thorns that her coach, Paul Riley, had repeatedly made sexual advances and touched her inappropriately in a private setting. Levine had also been given a report commissioned by the team on the culture of harassment the coach created. 

But Levine, along with others in the league who had the information, withheld it from another team, the Western New York Flash, even as the team owner considered Riley to be its coach in 2016, the report said. 

Nor did Wahlke pass along the information about the allegations when Riley, in 2018, was under consideration to be coach of the women’s national soccer team. 

“Riley publicly withdrew himself from consideration,” the report said. “But during those conversations, Wahlke never conveyed the report that Riley had a ‘relationship with a Portland player.’”

In another instance, a players’ association representative forwarded concerns about a pattern of abuse by Rory Dames, coach of the Chicago Red Stars, to Wahlke. In her response, the legal chief ordered an independent review, by Kristin Jones of Pepper Hamilton, but Wahlke sat on the initial report. 

“Wahlke never shared the preliminary findings with [the women’s league or the Chicago team], nor did she ever recommend any concrete action to remove Dames,” the report said. 

Wahlke also didn’t use the findings as a reason to look more deeply into the matter. 

“‘[L]et’s hold off on opening a formal investigation of this one,’” the report quotes Wahlke saying to Jones. “‘We have no allegations of sexual misconduct and it’s not yet clear whether this is really bad management or something more – I think we need more information.’”

Jones said her work was directed exclusively by Wahlke, who wanted a balanced approach to the external review, the report said. 

Systemic failing

The culture of abuse was widespread in the league, according to the report. By the end of the 2021 season, after some allegations were aired in a report by The Athletic, five of the league’s 10 teams had separated from their head coaches in the wake of player complaints.  

The report provides a list of recommendations to help the federation and the league bring an end to what it concludes is a systemic problem. It doesn’t fault any one person or function for lapses, and based on its reporting of how they responded to the sensitive matters they were handed, the two top lawyers appeared to be faced with a challenging balancing act. 

"Never once during this whole time was the right person protected," Megan Rapinoe, the well-known player from the national woman’s championship soccer team, said last year in a tweet after The Athletic’s story of the league’s sexual abuse problem was published, prompting the league’s commissioner at the time to resign. General Counsel Levine resigned at the same time.   

"The league was informed of these allegations multiple times and refused multiple times to investigate the allegations," Alex Morgan of the Orlando Pride soccer team said in response to last year’s resignations. "The league must accept responsibility for a process that failed to protect its own players from this abuse."