Why NWSL is paying players $5 million in restitution over past abuse scandal
Full Time: A show about women's soccer
The Athletic
4.8 • 808 Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Full Time unpacks the outcome of a joint investigation by the attorneys general of the District of Columbia, Illinois, and New York into systemic abuse within the National Women's Soccer League from 2013 until 2021.
As a result, the NWSL must create a $5 million player compensation fund as part of a settlement regarding its role in widespread allegations of abuse.
We examine how we got here and what made the 2021 NWSL reckoning so impactful. What does this restitution fund mean for the league and women's soccer worldwide? Why is it important to note that the NWSL Players Association is the one forcing the league to be accountable?
Hear from former players Erin Simon and Tori Huster as well as NWSLPA executive Meghann Burke as they reflect on the week's historic settlement.
PLUS: The trial of former Spanish soccer federation president Luis Rubiales is underway in Madrid. How does it intersect with the NWSL's landmark changes and the broader landscape of making women's soccer safer around the world?
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Articles mentioned on the show:
NWSL agrees to pay $5 million to players who suffered abuse in new settlement
NWSL players pause games in protest as games return in wake of Paul Riley investigation
Luis Rubiales trial: Jorge Vilda spoke of ‘consequences’ for Jenni Hermoso, claims her brother
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HOSTS: Meg Linehan, Theo Lloyd-Hughes
PRODUCER: Theo Lloyd-Hughes
VIDEO PRODUCER: Lia Griffin
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Emily Olsen
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to full-time with Megalindahan. |
| 0:17.3 | Tamara Griffin is still in Portugal and otherwise engaged. |
| 0:23.7 | So Theo Lloyd Hughes is back with me again. |
| 0:25.7 | This week, Theo, how are you? |
| 0:27.1 | I'm all right. |
| 0:28.2 | Heavy. |
| 0:30.2 | Heavy Wednesday. |
| 0:32.0 | Heavy world. |
| 0:34.0 | But happy to be here with you. |
| 0:37.3 | And we're going to get into some important soccer stuff. |
| 0:37.8 | How are you, Meg? |
| 0:44.7 | Yeah, I mean, it definitely was a very interesting and not necessarily the happiest national girls and women's in Sports Day, which to be fair is always a holiday where I feel a little like, |
| 0:50.0 | I understand its purpose. It's lovely, but I get a little frustrated that we're like, we'll just |
| 0:54.0 | contain it to a day and then be done with it. |
| 0:55.7 | So yeah. It has definitely been, I think, a little bit of a strange week. And so that is what we're going to focus on this week on full time. We're going to discuss the major news that was just announced. |
| 1:18.5 | The NWSL is going to pay $5 million in a restitution fund to players who suffered abuse in the league, |
| 1:23.9 | following a settlement with the attorneys general of DEC, New York, and Illinois. Now, this all goes back to the revelations of abuse, harassment, coercion, |
| 1:28.9 | you name it, across the NWSL in 2021, the work that was already done by Sally Yates and her |
| 1:34.3 | report and the joint investigation put together by the NWSL and the NWSel Players Association. |
| 1:40.9 | And those two reports had already kind of revealed just the true extent of how |
| 1:46.0 | systemic these issues were across the league. Now, the attorneys general, in addition to this |
| 1:51.0 | $5 million fund, are also going to have oversight over the NWSL's ongoing reforms for the next |
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