What A Day - Women Soccer Players Fight Against Abuse

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

Players across the National Women’s Soccer League have recently gone public with stories of verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse and harassment. Following these reports of abuse, the league cancelled all five games scheduled for last weekend. And when games resumed on Wednesday, the saga culminated with dramatic moments of silent protests at all league matches. Meg Linehan, who covers the world of women’s soccer for The Athletic, joins us to discuss the developing story. And in headlines: the Senate voted to raise the country’s debt ceiling for now, Pfizer-BioNTech asked the FDA to authorize its vaccine for emergency use in kids 5-11, and Biden signs an executive order today to protect national monuments shrunk in size by Trump.Show Notes:The Athletic: “‘This guy has a pattern’: Amid institutional failure, former NWSL players accuse prominent coach of sexual coercion” – https://bit.ly/3oJ5TVsThe Athletic’s Meg Linehan – https://twitter.com/itsmeglinehanFor a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, October 8th. I'm Travelle Anderson. And I am Priyanka Arabindi. And this is What A Day, where we're volunteering to respond to Senate subpoenas related to the January 6th attack if Trump and his friends won't do it. Listen, I mean, I saw it. You saw it. We all saw it. The whole world saw it. Right. So like, happy to tell you what happened if you need some clarification. On today's show, Congress has reached a deal to temporarily lift the debt ceiling,

but it's not completely over yet. Plus, Biden will sign an executive order today to protect national monuments shrunk in size by Trump. But first, we want to catch you up on an important story that's developed in the sports world. It's been an incredibly emotional week for players in the National Women's Soccer League, or NWSL. Players across the league went public with stories of verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse and harassment. Many of the accused, coaches and high-ranking officials, were either placed on leave, fired or resigned, including League Commissioner Lisa Baird, who resigned last Friday. Following these reports of abuse, the league canceled all five games scheduled for last weekend.

And when games resumed, the saga culminated with this dramatic moment on Wednesday. At the six-minute mark during all three of the games being played, teens took to the field and linked arms in a circle for a minute of silent protest. I think you can see, you can feel the weight of this statement, this moment for the players. That's the moment when it happened between Gotham FC and the Washington Spirit. The controversies that have been bubbling up in the past week are just the latest problem for the league and the allegations of the abuse that the players say they've suffered. It was sparked by a recent investigation by Meg Linehan, staff writer for The Athletic,

who we have here today to tell us more about what's happening. Meg, welcome to What A Day. Thank you for having me. So your story focused primarily on Paul Riley, who's the former head coach of the North Carolina Courage. We say former because right after your piece came out, he was fired. Can you give us a recap of what the players there were telling you was going on with him? Thursday's story was really the stories of two former players, Sinead Fairley and Mana Shim.

And this is a story for a player like Sinead Fairley going back a decade to her rookie season with the Philadelphia Independence. She was drafted number two overall by Paul Reilly. Her story to me was by the end of that first season, she felt coerced into having sex with him. And that happened two more times between 2011 and 2012. And then her story intersects with Mana Shim with the Portland Thorns. And there she felt targeted by him. He started changing film sessions to his apartment. There was one night after a night out at a bar and he asked the two of them to kiss. The promise was

if they did kiss in front of him that the entire team wouldn't have to run this fitness drill the next training session. And they did not run that training drill at the next training. And there's another part of this story as well. It's not just necessarily the behavior that they discussed, but also their journey to try to get their stories listened to because they had so much concern for current players. So really the whole tail end of that story from last week on The Athletic that we had was them trying to figure out how to get the commissioner of the NWSL at the time, Lisa Baird,

to open a new investigation to hear them out. And they were essentially told, thank you for your bravery, but no investigation. Yeah. So there's a lot there. But then also this past week, the CEO and owner of the Washington Spirit, Steve Baldwin, resigned. Exactly how widespread is this issue? Can you go over what was going on with the Washington Spirit as well? Sure. Washington Spirit have been their own journey over the past few months. So, yes, the managing partner, Steve Baldwin, resigned, but still fundamentally he owns 35-ish percent of the team. But, you know, players, someone like Kaya McCullough stepped forward

and went on the record to discuss this environment of verbal abuse and racism, honestly, but also homophobic language that was happening with the coaching staff, former head coach Richie Burke. So the Washington Spirit have their own situation. But again, to your point, this has not been the standalone problem in the NWSL over the past year. Plus, we've had a lot of situations. And that goes back to reporting that I was involved in about 14, 15 months ago. Now, it's honestly been going on for a while. There have been situations beyond this, but it just feels like it has been everywhere for the past year or so. Yeah, definitely. I want to ask you about how a culture like this or how you think a culture like this has been able to breed throughout this league for so long. There's a few elements here, right? There is this focus on the positive, right? There's also

this fear from players that any negative story, so like exactly what we're talking about right now, it could not just affect you, but your team could go down, the entire league could go down. And we've seen that in the past. This is the third version of women's professional soccer in this country. So we spoke about in the story, the sense of silence that has permeated because of this fear where it's not just you need to be quiet, but you need to make it look like you're happy because otherwise this sport might not survive. There's all of this stuff building into this moment. And now we're finally starting to see players realize that, A, the solidarity part for them

is really important, but also that someone needs to lead on their behalf. And ultimately, it should really be them. We've mentioned already that the league's commissioner, Lisa Baird, resigned last Friday. All of last weekend's games were canceled. Could you give us a little bit more about like what the players are looking for by coming out with their stories and all of that? Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, the the moment at the games on Wednesday night was extremely powerful. But also that that moment of protest and solidarity was joined by a list of eight demands for the league. That was just the Players Association, the Portland Thorns team,

for instance, has their own list of demands for their front office. So we now have at least I think, five investigations going. And so a big concern for the players is not just that those investigations are effective, but that we've needed transparency in the NWSL since the NWSL started. And now I think more than ever, that is kind of one of the key demands is transparency and a proactive approach. I'm wondering where you think they go from here. Do you think that the league can make these reforms? Do you think the league implodes?

I think the intention is not to suddenly shut the league down because, again, that's the fear, right? The fear is all of a sudden 250 of us are not going to have jobs tomorrow. But there is, I think, a path out for the NWSL. And it's going to be a long path to reform, to new policies that the league and the clubs have to do. And I think the players have really shown they don't want to burn the league down. They want to figure out what is wrong, get rid of what is wrong, and then make it stronger. Totally. You're saying the players, Yunnan, they're also in negotiations with the league about things like higher pay, those salaries. Most of them are making less than $31,000 a year,

I know, have to pick up second jobs, things like that. Have all of the controversies of abuse factored into any of those talks or is it too early to tell? I mean, I think the Players Association is definitely in a pretty strong position for collective bargaining now, right? But part of what we were watching with the CBA negotiations even before all of this really happened was we knew for a fact that really, it was only former Commissioner Lisa Baird who was in these meetings. The owners had not been participating. How do you proceed with figuring out how to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with people who have not been at the

table? I think we've seen how the pressure from players can really play an important role in both negotiation, but also really kind of dragging the league to where it should be. But the collective bargaining agreement was already such an important story for the NWSL. And now it's just, it's really one of the highest, highest priorities across the NWSL at this point in time. Now, we've spoken about the moment of silence that happened at the games at the six minute mark. The Players Association said that it was a nod to the six years it took for several victims to be heard. The league issued a statement about the protest that said, quote, we understand that much needs to be done to regain their trust. But I'm wondering, I should say, I'm a naturally pessimistic journalist, FYI. So in your mind, I'm wondering what has the league

done so far that to you actually shows some promise or some movement here? So that's a really good question. That's a really good question, because I don't know if enough has happened for that. And so I think what we're already seeing is that the players are going to be willing to take every single game day. Because if the league is not rising to the level that the players want to see, there's absolutely women from the Board of Governors. U.S. Soccer launched their investigation and hired Sally Yates to run it. So it's really hard, I think, to compete with that name in terms of running an investigation that is still, I joked about this on Twitter, I did not have Sally Yates on my bingo card coming out of this story. But I think the NWSL has not necessarily stepped up to the level that I think most, it's not even just the players, but I think also, you know, the supporters and everyone else kind of watching. It's going to be a long journey. And again, I think it needs to be more proactive of how do we get there faster. And so far, it has not exactly been at the level that most were hoping for. Well, Meg, thank you so much for being here and answering all of these questions. Thank you for having me.

Meg Linehan is a staff writer for The Athletic who covers the world of women's soccer. And if you haven't been following Meg's great coverage on all of this, we will have a link to her stories and her Twitter in our show notes. That is the latest for now. It's Friday, Wild Squad, and today we're doing a segment called The Solution, where we propose a fix to a news story that has created chaos in our world. Guiding us through today is our writer, John Milstein. Hey, John. Hi, thank you guys for having me to do this important work. This week, singer Meghan Trainor gave us an all-new intrusive thought by revealing that she and her husband Daryl Savara from Spy, designed their home to include two side-by-side toilets in the master bedroom.

Traynor made the announcement on her brother's podcast. She said the tandem toilets let her and Mr. All About That Bass pee together. There's another thing you do on toilets, but Traynor clarified that she and her husband have only collaborated on that particular project one or maybe two times. Obviously, two-toilet-gate has made all of us question everything we ever thought we knew about marriage and or houses. So for Meghan Trainor's weird bathroom, John has the solution. We need to send former President Donald Trump, whose middle name is actually another word for toilet to Megan trainers house to see if toilets still require tons and tons of flushes. If they are sat side by side in a lover's bathroom, maybe you don't remember,

but in the twilight of his presidency, Donald toilet, Trump took on plumbing issues with gusto. When his supporters showed up to his rallies in giant numbers, instead of doing things of a political nature, he used his time to convince them that the toilets of our modern age work so bad they're basically just open chairs. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once. If Trump's amazing theory of a 15-flush toilet is true, it has massive implications for the honeymoon toilet suite designed by Megan, the trainer.

We could be talking about 30 flushes per visit, which is wasteful and would surely make the neighbors think that Megan and her husband are getting rid of evidence. Though in a sense, they are. Evidence of eating dinner just hours before. Of course, all our lived experiences of toilets tell us we should expect a normal one and done flush situation in this bathroom. But toilets seem to act differently around President Trump. Maybe they let their guard down because they see him as one of their own. And if that's what's going on, and this bathroom is actually a 30 flusher, it needs to be bulldozed immediately and replaced with green space for

the community only after trump conducts this research on megan trainers his and her toilets can we begin to understand deeper questions about them such as is it time to tell celebrities they're never allowed to appear on any other podcasts podcasts. Oh my God, where do I even react? Where do I even begin? John? I'm still stuck on the on Trump finding community with toilets. It's a very vivid image in my mind. I do disagree with you, though. I think that is a curse a curse a cursed area i don't think that can become space for the community i think like we just have to like abandon abandon forever yeah no no it will naturally form a sinkhole uh through to china and our producer leo has noted it's very appropriate your name is john yes and you're doing this segment. I'm also a toilet. Yep. I'm a toilet.

Thank you, guys. That was the solution. We will be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Congressional leaders finally reached a deal that allows the U.S. government to keep paying its bills, for now. The Senate passed a measure last night to raise the country's debt ceiling at least through December. At the last possible second, enough Republicans joined Dems to break the filibuster, paving the way for this deal to happen. The final step is expected to take place next week, when the House will vote on it too, where it will most likely pass. The deal ups the country's borrowing limit by $480 billion,

which the Treasury Department estimates should be enough through the beginning of December. There was quite a lot of drama leading up to this deal, to say the least. However, we're in the clear for now, though the agreement does not resolve the broader standoff between the two parties over a long-term solution. So that means we'll most likely be right back here on December 3rd, watching the government scramble again to not default on its debt. And you know what? Not to promote our own show, but we will be right here on What A Day covering it for you. So see you then, everyone.

All right. We potentially have some good news on the vaccine front for children. Pfizer-BioNTech asked the FDA yesterday to authorize its vaccine for emergency use in kids ages 5 to 11. An FDA advisory panel will consider the request at its meeting on October 26. And if regulators give it the green light, an estimated 28 million children in the U.S. will be eligible for shots come Halloween. Though, unfortunately, not quite soon enough for them to put their immunity to the ultimate test by bobbing for apples. In more COVID news, L.A. has joined New York and San Francisco in passing a sweeping vaccine mandate. Beginning last night, the county said that anyone over 12 must show proof of at least one vaccine dose or a negative test result if they want to enter indoor businesses like restaurants, bars, gyms and more.

And beginning November 4th, they must be fully vaccinated in order to enter these places. Palestinians are pushing back against a new ruling by an Israeli court that will allow quiet Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem in violation of a longstanding agreement which dictates that Muslims pray at Al-Aqsa while Jews worship nearby at the Western Wall. Attacks by Israeli police on Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa sparked weeks of bombings and missile strikes in Palestine and Israel earlier this year, and there have been frequent confrontations there since then. Muslim leaders have unanimously condemned this recent legal action and see it as an encroachment and a provocation, which could escalate hostilities.

Furthermore, many question the decision's legal basis since Al-Aqsa is controlled by Jordan and not subject to Israeli laws. Even Israeli police have called for the ruling, which was issued on Tuesday, to be reversed. Wow. Two of the parcels of land in the U.S. not currently affected by a giant oil spill, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah will see their territories enlarged today by the Biden administration. The White House confirmed last night that an executive order was coming. This is after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland sent Biden a report saying that she supported one back in June. Bears Ears National Monument was established by President Obama in 2016,

but a year later, Trump shrunk the monument by 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Espelante by half. He did so against the protests of tribal nations in the area, for whom Bears Ears is their ancestral homeland. But he did have the support of fossil fuel companies and Utah Republicans, for whom Bears Ears is a hot pie cooling on the windowsill, but for drilling, mining, and ranching. Biden will actually expand Bears Ears slightly beyond Obama's 2016 borders, and he'll also enlarge another national monument

slashed in size by Trump, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the coast of New England. Unsurprisingly, this news triggered uproar from Utah Republicans, who argue that a legislative solution would have been preferable to executive action of course for them the best option would have been none whatsoever oh yes inaction is the best action it's why we elect them anyway right

no none of us are elected they just rigged this this job to elect themselves they just did that fine done those are the highlights guys They just rigged this jam tool like themselves. They just did that. Fine. Done. Those are the highlights, guys. One more thing before we go. Love It or Leave It is back with weekly live shows at the Cine Lounge Outdoors in Hollywood through November 4th. On October 14th, Love It will be joined on stage by WOD Squad alum Akilah Hughes, plus Larry Wilmore, Solomon Giorgio, and Brandon Wardell. For tickets, head to croquet.com slash events. That's all for today.

If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, don't take your one toilet bathroom for granted and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just love letters from Utah Republicans to drilling sites like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. I'm Travelle Anderson. And take care with those buckets of apples, children. I thought that was going to go into like a different type of bucket, bucket,

toilet joke. And I'm glad we did not go in that direction. What a day is a production of crooked media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Jazzy Marine is our associate producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Leo Duran and myself. Our theme music is by Colin Gill, and our executive producers are Leo, Duran, and myself. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.