For nearly a decade, the Chicago Red Stars and the National Women’s Soccer League sold fans and players a lie.
Women’s soccer teams at large have long staked their advertising on the idea of inspiring young girls to dream bigger. The sentiment can feel corny at best, patronizing at worst. It’s also a complete fabrication.
The reality of professional women’s soccer in the U.S. is a nightmare, proved by the release last week of the Yates report — an independent investigation headed by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and the law firm of King & Spaulding commissioned after a series of scandals last year.
The 319-page document — entitled “Report of the Independent Investigation to the U.S. Soccer Federation Concerning Allegations of Abusive Behavior and Sexual Misconduct in Women’s Professional Soccer” — describes a simple, brutal truth: The NWSL is a safe harbor for bullies and sexual predators.
Coaches used their influence to bully, harass and assault their players, the report says. Executives and owners knew this for years and did nothing. All parties continued to sell this lie of women’s empowerment, pretending to uplift female athletes while terrorizing and gaslighting those same players behind closed doors.
And no other team investigated by Yates quite matched the institutional failure of the Chicago Red Stars, whose former coach Rory Dames and current owner Arnim Whisler are alleged to have spent the last eight years facilitating the systemic abuse of youth and professional players.
The Yates report detailed the “culture of fear” Dames built in Chicago — hurling slurs and epithets, calling Black players “thugs,” restricting access to boyfriends and families, making sexual comments and passes. Players described Dames as “condescending,” “manipulative,” “aggressive,” “insulting,” and “an intimidator.”
The report alleges Dames’ behavior extended to the girls he coached at Eclipse Select Soccer Club, an elite club run through the Elite Club National League that Dames still owns despite his departure from the Red Stars. Dames, the report said, regularly made comments about oral sex and the age of consent to his players according to interviews with players and parents, shouting insults during games that opponents still recalled verbatim years later.
“Rory was good at getting to know you as a person. … He’d take that knowledge to completely shatter your world and use it as leverage,” one player detailed in the report. “He would tear you down to your core in that way, in such a straight-faced, terrifying way . ... that gets into your soul.”
As owner, Whisler couldn’t be bothered to defend his players. He didn’t even run a background check when he hired Dames as coach in 2011 — if he had, he might have turned up a 1998 police investigation in which Dames was accused of sexually harassing two high school girls and punching a boy in the stomach in a previous coaching job.
Instead, Whisler bound Dames to an informal agreement, reportedly never placing the coach on a salary as he committed to a full-throated defense of Dames over the ensuing decade of their partnership.
For years, players such as Christen Press begged the Red Stars, the NWSL and the U.S. Soccer Federation to intervene. For years, their pain was shrugged off and disbelieved.
At every turn, Dames and Whisler pushed all blame back onto the players, telling investigators and members of the U.S. Soccer Federation that all reports of abuse stemmed from U.S. national team players’ desire to destroy the league. During a 2015 investigation, Whisler “chalked Dames’ repeated abuse and harassment of players up to ‘Rory being Rory.’ ”
Even now, Dames denies all wrongdoing in the face of a sea of testimony. And the Red Stars followed suit, pointedly delaying their submission of key evidence for the investigation and fighting instead to narrow its scope according to Yates and her team.
No one in any position of authority has acted with reason or morality at any step of this process. But none of that self preservation matters anymore. Whisler knew. Dames knew. Countless other members of the Red Stars, the NWSL and the U.S. Soccer Federation knew. Regardless of how they sputter and backtrack, the jig is up — no one believes the lies anymore.
The universal experience players described in the Yates report was a sensation of unparalleled vulnerability created by the toxicity within the NWSL.
About 75% of NWSL players make less than $31,000 per year, reliant on their teams for housing in high-priced markets such as Chicago. One of the players who reported harassment by Dames made only $14,000 as a rookie. These players relied fully upon teams such as the Red Stars — for their livelihoods, their futures, their positions in the sport.
And Dames’ proclivity to target youth players only deepens this crisis of vulnerability as more enter the league as minors.
When Olivia Moultrie last summer became the first minor signed to the league at 15, her story was celebrated as yet another sign of that inspirational future for girls the league so proudly touted. But Moultrie joined the Portland Thorns, a team owned by Merrit Paulson and led by general manager Gavin Wilkinson, who brazenly covered up the sexual harassment that led to the firing of former coach Paul Riley.
These players are professionals, but they still are children. How can we promise their protection? How can we safeguard their youth when the league has fought tooth and nail to secure the longevity of its coaches rather than the safety of its players?
Those questions should push the league and its fans forward in the wake of the Yates report. This is the beginning, not the end. And in Chicago, there are several simple, obvious steps to begin this process.
Whisler must announce his sale of the Red Stars. This means a full retreat from the sport: as an owner, an investor and even as a fan on Twitter. Stepping back from team operations isn’t enough.
In the same way, it is time for the Chicago youth soccer community to banish Dames once and for all. At the height of his power, Dames is described in the Yates report as a “god” who wielded absolute influence to abuse, terrorize and assault players. He does not belong in this sport — or in any space populated by young, vulnerable women.
And it’s time for the Red Stars to own up to their complicity. This means complying promptly and transparently with every investigation. This means removing any person — staffer, owner or executive — who helped to aid and abet Dames and Whisler in their cover-up. And it means fully committing to the prioritization of their players rather than any other stakeholder.
None of these measures can erase the pain wreaked by Dames, Whisler and the Red Stars. None of this will give back the freedom, the confidence, the joy they stole from those players. Nothing can fix the past.
But the release of the Yates report can stand as a pivotal moment for the league to move forward in good faith and finally — finally — protect its players.
Red Stars, you’re up first.
