Removing owners like Arnim Whisler from women’s soccer league is only the start

There’s an abundance of reactions one can have to reading through this week’s 150-page-plus independent report on the systemic abuse that permeated the National Women’s Soccer League, but surprise isn’t one of them.

I mean, really, what do we expect?

When a league is built on the backs of women but engulfed by male leadership, what do we expect? When we ask women to perform but not lead, what do we expect?

The women of the NWSL were taught to take what they can get and silently suffer through the hurdles in an effort to build a more promising league for the future, to accomplish their dreams.

But those hurdles weren’t hurdles. They were years of unchecked abuse and sexual misconduct by men put in positions of power.

In Chicago, Red Stars majority owner Arnim Whisler refused to accept Rory Dames’ resignation after claims of abuse against the coach. As a result, Dames reportedly went on to emotionally and verbally abuse players for years until Whisler allowed him to resign last November, hours before the Washington Post published a report detailing the behavior.

“Teams, the league and the federation not only repeatedly failed to respond appropriately when confronted with player reports and evidence of abuse, [but] they also failed to institute basic measures to prevent and address it, even as some leaders privately acknowledged the need for workplace protections,” Sally Yates, the former U.S. attorney general, wrote in her report. “As a result, abusive coaches moved from team to team, laundered by press releases thanking them for their service and positive references from teams that minimized or even concealed misconduct.”

This neglect not only sent a message that the NWSL accepts abuse and misconduct toward women — it also discouraged women from coming forward with their stories.

At this point, ridding professional women’s sports of owners such as Whisler, the Portland Thorns’ Merritt Paulson and the Phoenix Mercury’s Robert Sarver — who also owns the NBA’s Suns — is a start. But it’s not enough.

Women’s sports are facing a larger issue, one that’s reflective of society as a whole: the conditioning of women to accept abuse.

As it stands, three of the 12 NWSL teams are coached by women. Women’s leagues don’t need to be exclusively coached by women, but the lack of women in those leadership roles points to a pervasive absence of opportunity for women even in spaces where they’re the majority.

The WNBA has six women in head coaching positions, along with three men and three coaching vacancies. But it wasn’t until recently that those numbers shifted; at the end of the 2020 season, eight of the 12 head coaches were men.

The WNBA started the 2022 season with three Black women in head coaching roles. After the Dallas Wings fired Vickie Johnson in September, despite the team reaching the postseason, there are now two: the Seattle Storm’s Noelle Quinn and the Atlanta Dream’s Tanisha Wright. Sky coach and general manager James Wade is the only Black man leading a WNBA team.

A new policy that allows each team to carry three assistants instead of two, with one needing to be a former WNBA player, aims to expand the pool of coaching talent and give more opportunities to former players. Wade has two assistants who are former players: Tonya Edwards and Ann Wauters.

“Once they start seeing women in positions of power where they belong, the respect factor goes up,” Wade said. “It builds the brand of basketball, the game, and that’s where equality settles in, where you’re looking at people for their knowledge and character, not based on gender.”

This week, the Red Stars board of directors announced its vote to remove Whisler as chairman and its desire to facilitate a sale of Whisler’s shares as soon as possible.

It’s a start, but it’s not enough. The voices at the top need to mirror the league itself. Without more representation from women and marginalized voices, abuse will continue.