Everybody knew Paul Riley was a problem.
The first tangible sign came after the 2014 season, when players on the women’s soccer team he coached, the Portland Thorns, complained about his behavior in an anonymous survey.
“We got used to being called dumb, stupid, slow, idiotic, retarded,” one player wrote. Another said, “Being subject to verbal abuse and sexism shouldn’t exist in this league by any coach.”
The comments were distributed to executives throughout the National Women’s Soccer League and the United States Soccer Federation, which effectively ran the NWSL at the time. No one did anything about them, according to a withering report on abuse in women’s soccer. Riley did not respond to messages asking for comment when the report was released Monday.
The indifference of Sunil Gulati, who was then president of U.S. Soccer, demonstrates how the soccer world thought of the Thorns. Gulati told investigators that while the surveys contained important feedback, he did not remember reading the comments from Thorns players.
Why not? He suspected, he told investigators, “that he overlooked them because he assumed Portland was squared away.”
The report — conducted by Sally Q. Yates, a former deputy U.S. attorney general, at the behest of U.S. Soccer — issued a clarion call for dramatic change throughout women’s soccer, from the professional ranks down to the youth game, and within every organization that oversees the sport.
But nowhere is that call louder than in the place that calls itself Soccer City USA, where the Thorns seemingly embody both the best and worst of women’s soccer in America.
Merritt Paulson, owner of the Thorns, said Tuesday that he was temporarily “stepping away” from the team’s decision-making, and Wednesday he fired two Thorns executives. But Paulson gave no indication that he planned to sell the team, even as one of his most team’s popular players, defender Becky Sauerbrunn, called for him and others to be forced from the league.
As his two Oregon teams — Paulson also owns a men’s team, the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer — won games and titles and packed Providence Park, Paulson cultivated a reputation as a fan- and media-friendly populist, the kind of owner who would banter on Twitter and shake hands on game day. That image, and his team’s commercial and on-field successes, made him a serious player in American soccer — and one with powerful supporters.
Even after some revelations about the Thorns’ inaction with Riley, and after the Timbers were fined by MLS for failing to disclose accusations of domestic violence against a player, Paulson was praised by MLS Commissioner Don Garber, a U.S. Soccer board member.
“I have enormous faith and confidence in Merritt Paulson, who’s built from scratch one of the great sports teams, in any sport, in our country, if not throughout North America,” Garber said in February. “I know that he’s very passionate about his teams, both the Portland Timbers and the Portland Thorns, and is going to cooperate in anything that is being reviewed.”
That faith and confidence may be shattered by allegations that the Thorns ignored complaints of sexual and verbal abuse against Riley, covered for him despite firing him for his behavior and encouraged his moves to new teams, and then worked to thwart Yates’ investigators.
On Wednesday, Garber said that he supported the investigation and the report’s recommendations, and that its findings “made clear that there are elements of the soccer system that are broken and in need of urgent repair.”
He added that he has been in contact with Paulson, and supports the steps he has taken, including removing himself from Thorns operations and firing two executives. “I believe these are appropriate initial steps for their organization, their community, and the sport of soccer,” Garber said.
For a year, Thorns fans have been torn about how to straddle the line between supporting the players on a team run by people they believe are failing them, with some still attending games but boycotting merchandise and concessions stands, and others simply not going.
“Many friends and volunteering colleagues stopped attending games long ago,” said Rachel Greenough, 39, who is a member of the Rose City Riveters, a Thorns supporters group that has called for Paulson to sell. “They felt like they could not be in that stadium because it felt like an emotional burden they didn’t want to take on, or they didn’t want to give money to the organization. I totally understand that.”
The team’s inaction over player complaints about Riley, and the steps several Thorns executives — including Paulson — took to help him find another NWSL job, cannot be blamed on ignorance. As the report makes clear, the team knew everything.
The Thorns, in fact, dismissed Riley after the 2015 season, days after a player, Meleana Shim, made a formal complaint to the team that Riley had sexually harassed her, presided over a toxic workplace and coerced her and another player to kiss in front of him.
That decision was made, however, only after years of complaints. Riley’s sexual misconduct was an “open secret” by then — known by players, a coach, an owner and an assistant general manager for another team, according to the report. Players complained in surveys. The Thorns’ athletic trainer told her superiors that Riley went against medical recommendations and endangered players. Riley also had multiple sexual relationships with players throughout his career as a coach.
Altogether, the report painted a picture of a coach who crossed every line imaginable and whose conduct was reported to those in charge, and yet his contract was only terminated after his team missed the playoffs for the first time. The Thorns then actively assisted Riley with getting another job in the NWSL, with the Western New York Flash.
The Thorns did not say publicly that Riley’s contract had been terminated after a formal complaint and a human resources investigation that substantiated many of the complaints. They publicly wished him well. When a Flash executive spoke to Gavin Wilkinson, then the Thorns general manager, Wilkinson told him Riley was “put in a bad position by the player” and that Wilkinson “would hire him in a heartbeat.”
Riley coached six more seasons on the strength of that recommendation. Wilkinson declined to comment.
In the year since the stories of Shim and Sinead Farrelly, a former Thorns player who said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with Riley, were made public, leading to his firing by the North Carolina Courage, immense scrutiny has been focused on the Thorns front office.
Besides endorsing Riley, Wilkinson jokingly called a player a demeaning name and was critical of another’s sexuality, according to what players told investigators. Wilkinson denied both claims, but he was placed on administrative leave by the Thorns last October. Three months later he was reinstated.
This summer The Oregonian reported on “an atmosphere of disrespect and intimidation toward women” at the Thorns cultivated by Mike Golub, the team president of business. Cindy Parlow Cone, president of U.S. Soccer and a former national team player, told investigators that while she was coaching the Thorns in 2013, Golub asked her, “What’s on your bucket list besides sleeping with me?”
When Cone informed Paulson, the Thorns owner, about the incident months later, he told Cone that he wished she had told him about it when it occurred. According to Paulson, Golub is currently undergoing “remediation” and was not allowed to speak to investigators for the report. Golub did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Both Golub and Wilkinson were “relieved of their duties” by the Thorns on Wednesday.
The responses by Paulson and the Thorns to investigations into abuse are also under the microscope. Last year Paulson pledged transparency and to cooperate with any and all investigations. But according to the Yates report, he and the team did anything but that.
“The Portland Thorns interfered with our access to relevant witnesses and raised specious legal arguments in an attempt to impede our use of relevant documents,” the report said.
There could be more revelations to come, as a joint investigation into abuse by the NWSL and its players’ association is expected to be completed this year. The Thorns could win their third championship later this month, but some players, at least, would not see it simply as another success by the sport’s best-run team.
“The jerseys that we’re wearing — it’s hard to be happy in them,” said Dunn on Wednesday. “It’s hard to find joy in wearing it.”