‘The players are not doing well’: Becky Sauerbrunn calls for change following Yates report

Less than 24 hours after a scathing report detailing abuse in women’s soccer was released, U.S. women’s national soccer team captain Becky Sauerbrunn answered the question she knew was coming.

“The players are not doing well,” she said from London ahead of Friday’s USWNT-England game at Wembley.

The U.S. Soccer-commissioned report, which was conducted by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Q. Yates and the law firm King & Spalding, found that emotional abuse and sexual misconduct are systemic in women’s soccer.

“We are horrified and heartbroken and frustrated and exhausted and really, really angry,” Sauerbrunn continued. “We are angry that it took a third-party investigation. We are angry that it took an article in the Athletic and the Washington Post and numerous others.

“We’re angry that it took over 200 people sharing their trauma to get to this point, right now. And we’re angry that it took Mana (Shim) and Sinead (Farrelly) and Erin (Simon) and Kaiya (McCullough) and Alex (Morgan) and Christen (Press) and Sam (Johnson) to repeatedly ask people in authority to take their abuse and their concerns seriously.”

Sauerbrunn went on to say she believes “every owner and executive and U.S. Soccer official who has repeatedly failed the players, and failed to protect the players, and have not participated fully in these investigations should be gone.”

Sauerbrunn, who plays in the NWSL for the Portland Thorns, was later asked to confirm that that includes Thorns/Timbers CEO and owner Merritt Paulson.

“It includes everyone that has continued to fail the players time and time again,” she said.

The Yates report detailed how Paulson failed to take action and continued to support former Thorns head coach Paul Riley after Riley