Farrelly's return to pitch at Women's World Cup brings attention to abuse in soccer

Sinead Farrelly wasn't sure she'd ever come back to soccer.

Farrelly, whose story was at the centre of an abuse scandal that rocked women's soccer in the United States, hadn't played for more than six years before re-embracing the sport this spring.

"I wouldn't have been able to do it unless I was able to get that off my chest and get that story out, because the healing and liberation from that had to occur before I could ever play again," she said.

Now headed to the Women's World Cup with Ireland, Farrelly's presence at the tournament is a testament to her own resilience and healing. But it also underscores the larger realities of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse in women's soccer and what is being done about it on the global stage.

Allegations of abuse, often sexual, have affected national teams around the world in recent years, including reported cases in Haiti, Venezuela, Zambia, Argentina, Colombia and Afghanistan, where the women's team was disbanded because of Taliban rule.

"The degree of abuse in football, I think, is widely underestimated. And the systems currently are not able to either protect, properly investigate and support ultimately the victims and survivors," FIFPRO General Secretary Jonas Baer-Hoffmann said.

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FIFPRO, the global players' union, acknowledges that while important steps have been implemented to protect players, "cases are often only brought to light once they have already reached a tragically high human cost."

Soccer's global governing body is paying attention. FIFA rolled out a safeguarding program at the under-20 Women's World Cup in Costa Rica last summer, aimed at keeping participants and fans safe from abuse, exploitation and