Even though the notorious foursome of Paul Riley (pictured), Richie Burke, Christy Holly and Rory Dames never coached professional football again after their despicable actions towards individual players and teams became widely known, making the official move to ban the quartet National Women’s Football League it was absolutely the right decision. Its concise finality was necessary.
riley’s answer
Riley spoke out after his league ban for WRAL, an NBC affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina, stating that it plans to fight many things. What exactly does he plan to fight? Of course, he didn’t elaborate. Riley has also stated that he has no plans to return to the NWSL. “We have a lot of plans ahead of us to fight a lot of things,” Riley told WRAL. “I absolutely never had any intention of coaching in the NWSL again. The league’s political, agreed-upon and canceled culture says it all.”
The report
After scathing reports detailing the foursomes’ behavioral patterns over the past two years, including Meg Linehan’s 2021 story in the athleticThe Yates report released by US Soccer last October and the NWSL’s own internal investigation, league commissioner Jessica Berman announced that the four coaches would be permanently banned from the league. Those are the highest sanctions handed out by the league on Monday following the conclusion of an investigation into “widespread misconduct”. Sanctions were also applied against various teams and organizations.
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The coaches and their punishments
The four disgraced former trainers were in charge of five of the 12 franchises in the NWSL. Riley coached the North Carolina Courage and Portland Thorns. Holly led Racing Louisville and Dames was the head coach of the Chicago Red Stars. Burke’s tenure as head coach of the Washington Spirit ended in 2021. His ban was instituted by the league as a Tier One sanction, the highest on the NWSL scale in its investigation. Punishments were applied at three different levels due to “the degree of seriousness of the misconduct, whether individuals in positions of power knew or should have known of the misconduct, the degree or repetition of the misconduct, evidence of retaliatory conduct, the approximate nature of the behavior or action to date and actions that have failed to communicate the misconduct to others,” read a statement from the league.
Other sanctions
The NWSL also sanctioned eight others. Two people, former Gotham FC general manager Alyse LaHue and former Utah Royals FC head coach Craig Harrington, were suspended for two years by the league. They represented the two Tier Two sanctions. If LaHue wants to be signed by a league team after her suspension expires before the 2025 season, she must meet certain criteria. Those were identified in a league statement as “acknowledging wrongdoing and accepting personal responsibility for misconduct, participating in training, and demonstrating a sincere commitment to correcting behavior.”
The rest of the sanctions were of the Tier Three category. The other six coaches sanctioned represented three franchises – former OL Reign head coach Farid Benstiti and former Orlando Pride head coach Amanda Cromwell. Sam Greene and Aline Reis, as well as former Houston Dash coaches James Clarkson and Vera Pauw. This sextet must follow the same requirements as NWSL like LaHue to be employed by another franchise in the league.
The NWSL has also doled out a number of fines, including hefty fines on its own league office and US Soccer, as well as requirements for both bodies to make systemic changes. The Red Stars were fined $1.5 million and the Thorns was fined $1 million. Both team owners, Arnim Whisler and Merritt Paulson, have previously announced their intention to sell their teams amid the investigation. The fines for Racing Louisville and North Carolina Courage were smaller but still significant – $200,000 and $100.00 respectively. Gotham FC and OL Reign were also fined $50,000 each. The two teams named in the statement but not fined were Spirit and Kansas City Current. According to the league’s statement, Spirit was not fined for being under new ownership, while Current did not retaliate against its own players.
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