How U.S. Soccer failed its players
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2022
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on “Post Reports,” we talk about a damning new report on systemic abuse in women’s soccer.
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Sports columnist Sally Jenkins said that abuse within women’s sports has been a long-standing problem, but it’s only recently that there’s been a public reckoning about it.
“These are some of our top athletes in the country, and nobody did anything. They treated the women like they were the problem,” Jenkins said. “The systemic issue is men in suits at the top of these organizations who do not take complaints from athletes seriously.”
Jenkins joined “Post Reports” to explain how deep and far-reaching abuse is within not just soccer, but many other Olympic sports as well, and why the culture of abuse has gone on for so long.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, this is Eli Hay. |
| 0:05.1 | Just a warning. |
| 0:06.1 | Today's episode deals with sexual harassment and abuse. |
| 0:09.6 | So please take care when you listen. |
| 0:14.0 | And you know, the word systemic is very annoying to me at this point because we've had a lot |
| 0:19.0 | of these reports. |
| 0:24.5 | Sally Jenkins is a sports columnist for the post. |
| 0:27.9 | We wanted to talk to her about a damning new report on systemic abuse and harassment |
| 0:33.1 | in the National Women's Soccer League. |
| 0:35.8 | And why the problem goes beyond one sport. |
| 0:39.9 | What the word systemic means is everybody knew, okay? |
| 0:43.8 | It means there was knowledge at the top of women's soccer that there were these complaints |
| 0:47.8 | from women's players. |
| 0:49.3 | There was no reason to think they were not credible. |
| 0:52.0 | These are some of our top athletes in the country and nobody did anything. |
| 0:57.2 | They treated the women like they were the problem, like they were the source of the trouble, |
| 1:01.9 | and they needed to just shut up and play. |
| 1:05.7 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:09.6 | I'm Eli Hayes-Addy. |
| 1:11.8 | It's Tuesday, October 4th. |
| 1:13.9 | Today, how U.S. women's soccer failed its players. |
| 1:18.5 | And what needs to change in women's sports? |
... |
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