Welcome to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s free women’s football newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition.
To receive the full version once a week, just pop your email in below: This past week, the US Women’s National Team took on a challenging international window amid the fallout of Sally Yates’s 172-page report investigating “abusive behavior and sexual misconduct” in the NWSL.
Released on 3 October, the report detailed abuse of various nature, at multiple clubs, and illustrated issues more pervasive than even the athletes involved had realised.
Among the findings, Yates’s year-long independent investigation stated that “abuse in the NWSL was systemic. Verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct occurred at multiple teams, was perpetrated by several coaches and affected many players.” The heavily decorated, intrinsically involved USWNT – many of whom performed for clubs implicated in the findings – waded through the report while overseas, preparing to meet two dominant sides in England and Spain.