You are viewing this post: Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married? The 75 Detailed Answer
Are you looking for an answer to the topic “Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married“? We answer all your questions at the website Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com in category: Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com/digital-marketing. You will find the answer right below.
Keep Reading
Who is Sinead Farrelly’s husband or partner? Find out if Paul Riley’s alleged sexual assault survivor is married or still single.
Sinead Farrelly is an American former soccer player who played professional soccer for the Boston Breakers of the National Women’s Soccer League.
She was also a member of the USA U-23 women’s soccer team and was selected #2 overall by the Philadelphia Independence in the 2011 WPS Draft.
Is Sinead Farrelly Married? Husband Or Partner
Sinead Farrelly has not commented on her marriage and relationships. In fact, the former soccer player has not revealed anything about her partner or husband on any of her social media platforms.
Sinead is a private person and not on social media either. In addition, there is little information about them on the Internet. Therefore, we have no details about her partner.
At the moment she seems to be single and without a husband. We hope for an update soon.
Sinead Farrelly Age And Wiki Explored
Sinead Farrelly’s age in 2021 is 31 years.
advertisement
Sinead was born on November 1, 1989 in Haverton, Pennsylvania and started playing soccer when he was just five years old. She played soccer through her high school, where she was a four-time team MVP and received First Team All All-Southeastern PA honors.
We can find Sinead on Wikipedia as she has a page dedicated to her name. She’s also currently trending on social media after going public with allegations of sexual assault against former coach Paul Riley. Former NWSL player Mana Shim also aligned himself with Farrelly as both blamed the former coach.
Since then, Paul has been dismissed from his position and both the NWSL and FIFA have opened further investigations.
Find Out Sinead Farrelly Net Worth
Sinead Farrelly Net Worth is currently under review.
The former soccer player has not disclosed her net worth and earnings to the public. However, she has certainly made a fortune during her career as a professional soccer player.
Although not very active on social media platforms, she is currently trending on those platforms. Farrelly and Shim both receive worldwe support and are praised for their bravery. They want more justice, better politics and protection for the players.
Former Women’s National Soccer players discuss misconduct allegations against coach
Images related to the topicFormer Women’s National Soccer players discuss misconduct allegations against coach
See some more details on the topic Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married here:
Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner: Is Paul Riley Accuser …
Who is Sinead Farrelly’s husband or partner? Discover if Paul Riley’s alleged sexual assault survivor is married or still single.
Source: musicliberia.com
Date Published: 6/15/2021
View: 6075
Fired NWSL coach Paul Riley ‘is a predator’ who ‘harassed his …
Former National Women’s Soccer League players Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim have broken their silence on their allegations of sexual harassment …
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Date Published: 7/14/2022
View: 2626
Who Is Sinead Farrelly? Husband 2021, Age, Parents, Net …
So, is she actually single or married to a husband? Meleana “Mana” Shim called her former North Carolina Courage coach Paul Riley “a …
Source: businessguideafrica.com
Date Published: 3/1/2022
View: 1469
‘This guy has a pattern’: Amid institutional failure … – The Athletic
One of the most successful coaches in U.S. women’s soccer, Paul Riley’s alleged misconduct left players feeling ‘under his control’
Source: theathletic.com
Date Published: 3/14/2022
View: 4602
Fired NWSL coach Paul Riley ‘is a predator’ who ‘harassed his players and coerced them into sex’
Former National Women’s Soccer League players Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim have broken their silence on their allegations of sexual harassment and coercion against fired coach Paul Riley – issues Shim says are rampant throughout the sport.
“He’s a predator,” Shim told NBC’s Today Show during a Tuesday morning interview with Farrelly and former US national team captain Alex Morgan. “He sexually harassed me. He sexually assaulted Sinead. He took our careers away from us.’
Riley, the head coach of the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage, was fired last week on allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and inappropriate comments about players’ weight and sexual orientation dating back more than a decade. With the claims unveiled by The Athletic last week, the NWSL canceled its weekend games and commissioner Lisa Baird resigned on Friday night.
Riley, now 58, told The Athletic the allegations were “completely false”, adding that he “never had sex with or made sexual advances towards these players”.
Shim says she first complained about Riley in 2015 when she played for him with the Portland Thorns. But while the team refused to re-sign him after his contract expired, he was still signed by the NWSL’s Western New York Flash the following season and by Courage in 2017.
Echoing Morgan’s statements, Shim said the problem is systemic in women’s football.
“I’m just so grateful for this opportunity to get these bad people out of the league and really shed some light on this issue because it’s so widespread,” she said. “It’s just not that team, it’s not just that coach. It’s across leagues, it’s across sports, and we have to do something about it.
Sinead Farrelly claims she was sexually harassed and coerced by former coach Paul Riley
Mana Shim says she first complained about Riley in 2015 when she played for him with the Portland Thorns. But while the team refused to re-sign him after his contract expired, he was still signed by the NWSL’s Western New York Flash the next season and by Courage in 2017
Alex Morgan told NBC that the NWSL was unable to deal with sexual harassment complaints
Paul Riley (pictured), the head coach of the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage, has been fired amid allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and inappropriate comments about players’ weight and sexual orientation
Both Shim and Farrelly allege that Riley often took her out drinking and used those moments to urge her to have sex. In an alleged incident in 2012, Riley, a Liverpool native who was then 47 and married, took Farrelly and another player to his hotel room and had sex with both of them.
Riley’s refrain, which Farrelly often repeated after having sex with her coach, was that they “would take it to the grave.”
The NWSL also launched an independent investigation into its handling of abuse claims on Sunday. Both FIFA and the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) launched investigations into why he was able to continue training, even after players raised their concerns with the league.
According to Morgan, who played in Portland with Shim and Riley, the problem was that the league was ill-equipped to deal with these allegations.
“Looking back, I was trying to be as good a friend and teammate as possible to Shim by helping her file a grievance when at the time there was no anti-harassment policy, there was no league human resources department, there was no anonymous hotline, no way to get in touch,” Morgan told NBC.
“We’ve now started to put these things in place at the request of the players, not by the initiative of the league. We require the league to be proactive, not reactive. We demand transparency.”
Both Farrelly and Shim spoke openly about the impact Riley’s alleged abuse has had on their careers and personal well-being.
“I think it’s just really important and why we wanted to share our story and share in such detail the damage that has been done to our careers but who we are as people,” Farrelly said. “The damage to my confidence and how I viewed myself seeps into every part of your livelihood.
“With that comes a lot of loss, and things I don’t get back. I think we can take advantage of the emotional impact of just showing up and trying to be your authentic self, it can really affect a lot of people because it’s bigger than the sport. This is about safety in our own lives and in our bodies. The players deserve it. We all deserve it. We will all fight for that.”
Riley’s sacking followed a bombshell Thursday report from The Athletic detailing allegations made by former players Sinead Farrelly (left) and Mana Shim (right). Farrelly told The Athletic there were several occasions when she felt compelled to have sex with Riley, a highly decorated coach who had reportedly been considered for US national team duties. Shim, a former Thorns player, was also allegedly harassed, including one incident in which she said Riley asked her to kiss a team-mate at his flat on the condition that he forego grueling conditioning exercises at the following workout
Both said they are very grateful to have support from fans and other players like Morgan.
“I am so overwhelmed with gratitude to everyone who has spoken out and supported us,” said Shim. “I am very, deeply saddened and heartbroken by what happened and it brings back a lot of feelings that I’ve sat with for years but have been dormant.
“I want more justice,” she continued. “I want better politics. I want the players to be protected and at the same time I feel like we’re on the right track and I’m grateful to everyone who reached out and supported us.
“The only thing that got me through was my teammates. Alex and Sinead, they are two of my best devils and thank god I have them. I just don’t know what I would do without her. Alex was the first person I told who said, ‘I would do anything to support you.’ And she was loyal from day one. And that’s really the only way I got through it. And I’m still damaged. It’s not something that just goes away overnight because we talk about it.
Farrelly said the reaction to The Athletic’s story gave her “pain a purpose”.
“It was a release for me that I haven’t felt in almost a decade,” Farrelly said. “Even those women, Mana and Alex, and a few other women that we’ve worked with, and every person that has come forward and shown support, turned that moment into a movement and made this cause.
“I have no words, just pure gratitude. They really amplified our voices and just made this what it should be, which is a big deal and calls for change. I feel very grateful and also very overwhelmed. That is much.’
NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement that the league is referring the allegations to the US Center for SafeSport for investigation. She has since resigned from her post
Commissioner Lisa Baird says she has asked players to raise concerns with the league
Farrelly’s alleged molestation began in 2011 when she was a player with the Philadelphia Independence of the Women’s Professional Soccer League. Farrelly told The Athletic there were several occasions when she felt compelled to have sex with Riley, a highly decorated coach who had reportedly been considered for US national team duties.
Riley was the 2011 Women’s Professional Soccer Coach of the Year and received the same awards in the NWSL in 2017 and 2018
Farrelly said the abuse continued when Riley trained her with the NWSL’s Portland Thorn. As she explained, Farrelly felt manipulated by Riley, who praised her talent in the media but routinely threatened to demote her to a bank role.
Riley’s underlying message, according to Farrelly, was that she could be a great player but needed him to make that happen.
“He really instilled in me that I had a lot of potential, was one of the best players he’s ever seen – but I needed the right coach to get me where I wanted to be,” Farrelly told The Athletic. “And that’s what he did, he took players and made them great.”
For example, when Farrelly returned from a brief call-up to the US national team in 2011, she said Riley told her she was disloyal to him and her teammates by accepting the assignment. She deserves the opportunity, but only if Riley coaches her on that stage, Farrelly said of his mindset.
Weeks later, when the USWNT offered Farrelly the final World Championship roster spot, she declined.
Farrelly told the website the abuse continued when she was with the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, but the two never had sex during his tenure there.
In a recent email to Baird shared by Morgan on social media, Farrelly said she reported her claims against Riley to the league in 2015, but the NWSL took no action
Instead, when Farrelly started dating a teammate, Riley reportedly began making comments about their relationship, saying she was “too hot to be a lesbian.”
“I would have these daydreams about getting injured and not having to play anymore,” Farrelly said.
Shim, a former Thorns player, was also allegedly harassed, including one incident in which she said Riley asked her to kiss a team-mate at his flat on the condition that he forego grueling conditioning exercises at the following workout.
“I felt like I owed him something from the start,” Shim told The Athletic.
Both women no longer play in the NWSL.
Riley was the Thorns’ head coach in 2014 and 2015. After being fired by the Thorns, he became the head coach of the Western New York Flash for a season before the team was sold and relocated to North Carolina.
He was the 2011 Women’s Professional Soccer Coach of the Year and received the same awards in the NWSL in 2017 and 2018. The Courage won the NWSL Championship in 2018 and 2019.
Morgan claimed the league knew of the allegations but flatly refused to investigate
The Thorns examined Riley while he was on the team and reported the findings to the league.
“While the results did not reveal any unlawful activity, they revealed clear violations of our company policies. Based on that, we have made the decision to cut ties with Riley,” the Thorns said in a statement.
National team star Samantha Mewis also offered to support Farrelly and Shim
The statement also said: “The article is difficult to read and there are some chilling revelations. We have grown as an organization since 2015 and will continue to strive to improve and become better. We will fully cooperate with any further investigation into this matter and, more importantly, we will re-examine our own processes and protocols designed to ensure a safe space.’
Before resigning, Baird said in a statement that the league is referring the allegations to the US Center for SafeSport for investigation.
The league, in its ninth season, is also mandating that everyone who interacts with players participate in training with SafeSport and undergo background checks and additional screening.
The Courage released a statement on behalf of the team owners, staff and players praising the women who have come forward.
“North Carolina Football Club is united in our commitment to creating a safe, positive and respectful environment, not just within our club, but throughout the league and in our great sport,” the statement read.
The Courage named assistant Sean Nahas as interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
Who Is Sinead Farrelly Husband 2021, Age, Parents, Net Worth & Sexual Abuse Scandal Explained
Sinead Farrelly is reportedly single as the retired soccer player has never revealed the identity of her partner. So is she actually single or married to a husband?
Meleana “Mana” Shim called her former North Carolina Courage coach Paul Riley “a predator” in an exclusive interview as the fallout continues in the National Women’s Soccer League after Riley was fired amid sexual misconduct allegations.
Riley was sacked last week after four years with the team following a report in The Athletic in which Shim and former player Sinead Farrelly accused him of sexual assault and verbal abuse.
Who is Sinead Farrelly?
Sinead Farrelly, whose full name is Sinead Louise Farrelly, is an American former professional soccer midfielder. She previously played for the Boston Breakers of the National Women’s Soccer League.
ADVERTISEMENT
In 2011, she played for the Philadelphia Independence of the WPS and was a member of the United States U-23 women’s national soccer team. She was selected by the Philadelphia Independence as the #2 overall pick in the 2011 University of Virginia WPS Draft. In 2009 she was a semifinalist in the Hermann Trophy.
During her career she was a member of various clubs including New York Fury, Apollon Limassol, Kansas City FC, Portland Thorns FC and Boston Breakers.
She has also played at international level, representing the United States at the U15, U16 and U23 levels.
Farrelly retired from the sport on December 2, 2016.
In October 2021, Farrelly made headlines after she and her retired NWSL player Mana Shim accused coach Paul Riley of sexual assault.
And now fans want to know everything about Farrelly’s life, including her husband/partner. She is married?
Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim are incredibly brave to share this. The league completely failed them. Also, I never want to hear people talk shit about Alex Morgan ever again. What she has been doing behind the scenes here is how all high profile players should be using her power and influence. https://t.co/WurYzXhvsA — PD (@footy_takes) September 30, 2021
Sinead Farrelly Husband or Partner 2021: Is She Dating?
Information about Sinead Farrelly’s husband or partner is not available on social media or other networking sites as the ex-NWSL player has always kept quiet about it.
Farrelly has never been in the news for her dating life and there is no record of her ever being linked to any possible romantic interest.
So, in the absence of an active love life, we can assume that she is currently single and focused on her professional life.
Who are Sinead Farrelly’s parents?
University of Virginia graduate Sinead Farrelly was born on November 16, 1989 to her parents in Havertown, Pennsylvania.
Her parents supported her when she started playing soccer at the age of 5. However, the names and identities of her parents are not disclosed publicly.
Former and current NWSL players Mana Shim, Sinead Farrelly and Alex Morgan are speaking out after a report last week detailing alleged sexual assault by former North Carolina Courage head coach Paul Riley. (via @TODAYshow) pic.twitter.com/gdg4IIHQxN – Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 5, 2021
What is Sinead Farrelly Net Worth?
According to buzzlearn.com, Sinead Farrelly has an estimated net worth of between $1 million and $5 million.
Her verified net worth might not be mentioned but she has certainly made her net worth from her career in soccer. In her freshman year in 2007, she placed third on her college team.
Also, the 5ft 5in former player last played for Seattle Reign in 2016.
Sinead Farrelly Sexual Abuse Scandal Explained – Where Is She Now?
Shim, 30, and Farrelly, 31, came forward in an interview with US women’s national team star Alex Morgan and accused former coach Paul Riley of sexual assault and harassment.
According to The Athletic, Farrelly felt under Riley’s control and recalled several incidents where she felt compelled to sleep with her trainer.
“He’s a predator. He sexually harassed me, he sexually assaulted me and he took our careers away from us.” —Mana Shim on former NWSL coach Paul Riley pic.twitter.com/NM0BgwRlWJ – TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 5, 2021
Ms. Shim called Riley a predator and claimed he molested her and ruined their careers.
“He’s a predator,” Shim told Savannah Guthrie of Riley. “He sexually harassed me. He sexually assaulted Sinead and took our careers away from us.”
In one of those instances, they claimed that Riley took them to his apartment and asked them to kiss so they didn’t have to do a conditioning exercise.
Riley, 58, has denied all allegations. He responded in writing to The Athletic and denied having any sexual relations with any players.
“I have never had sex with these players or made sexual advances towards them,” he wrote.
The fallout also included the resignation of NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird and the cancellation of all league games last weekend.
“I’m so grateful to Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly,” Orlando Pride goaltender Erin McLeod told Sam Brock on TODAY Tuesday. “I can’t imagine bringing this story up so publicly, and the courage it takes, but it also sickens me that we needed this article to do something about it.”
‘This guy has a pattern’ Amid institutional failure, former NWSL players accuse prominent coach of sexual coercion
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the North Carolina Courage fired Paul Riley on Thursday.
This story is included in The Athletic’s Best of 2021. Check out the full list.
On a July night in 2014, in the closing minutes of a regular-season NWSL game between Portland Thorns FC and the Chicago Red Stars, Sinead Farrelly collapsed on the field at the Benedictine University Sports Complex. She had just started to defend an opposing player but was still far from the ball when she fell. The match commentator noted that she ran a lot, but there was no clear explanation as to why she went down. After a few moments, she was able to leave the field on her own, with the Thorns’ athletic trainer at her side. She didn’t limp; she was not evaluated for a head injury; nothing indicated why she had collapsed.
Farrelly was a regular starter for Portland. She was 24, firmly in the prime of her career, a box-to-box midfielder who had maintained a place at the highest level of women’s football even as one professional league closed and another formed. She had been invited to US national team camps twice.
She arrived in Portland earlier this 2014 season; the third team she had played for, coached by Paul Riley. He picked her with the Philadelphia Independence’s second overall pick in the 2011 Women’s Professional Soccer College Draft. Then in 2012, when WPS collapsed and Riley transferred to coach a semi-pro team on Long Island, Farrelly joined him there. Then they got back together in Portland.
“He really instilled in me that I had a lot of potential, was one of the best players he’s ever seen – but I needed the right coach to get me where I wanted to be,” Farrelly said. “And that’s what he did, he took players and made them great.”
In Philadelphia, Riley paid special attention to her during her rookie season, gradually lowering the boundaries between player and coach. When he took the team out drinking, he would sit next to her at the bar. He would give her cash to buy shots. He would tell her that she was beautiful and that the guys trying to buy her drinks weren’t good enough for her. On those evenings he asked her intense personal questions, and he seemed genuinely interested. She shared information about her past relationships, how she got along with her parents, and his answers boosted her confidence, “which made me feel like I was really rare and special,” she said.
But Riley could also be surprisingly gruff. While he gushed to the team and the media about Farrelly’s performances, he sent her away during practice with the substitutes, telling her he was still unsure of her abilities. He would then start the next game with her and repeat the cycle again. Farrelly ached for his approval. She felt like “his” player, even if she had to prove herself again and again.
Early in her freshman season in Philadelphia, Farrelly accepted a call to the US women’s national team. Riley told her when she returned to Independence that she had been disloyal to her original team and to him. She deserved to be on the national team, Riley said, but only if he coached her. A few weeks later, when the US team’s coaching staff called again, she declined – and gave up the last spot on the 2011 World Cup squad.
At the end of that season, after the Independence lost the WPS Championship and after drinking for hours as a team and lamenting the loss, Farrelly said she felt that Riley, who was 47 and married at the time, was dying , forced her into his hotel room and they had sex.
After WPS collapsed in early 2012, most of Independence — including Farrelly — played for Riley on a semi-pro team on Long Island, where the alleged sexual assault continued, Farrelly said. She once had sex with him and a teammate, she said, including after a night of binge drinking. After each encounter, she tried to pretend it never happened, repeating Riley’s mantra, told after their first night of sex that they “would take that to their grave.”
After that season, Farrelly joined Kansas City FC in the newly formed National Women’s Soccer League, but Riley haunted her mentally and emotionally. When he became Thorns manager in December 2013, Farrelly knew he would trade for them. She could feel it coming.
On that July night in 2014 on the field of the Benedictine University, the burden of it all came down on her. She would not play another minute for the remainder of the season, even as Portland made the playoffs. She was examined by doctors; She underwent a brain scan.
“They told me I had migraines and there was nothing wrong medically,” Farrelly said. “I now realize that I was not well. I couldn’t function under him. I couldn’t play football anymore.”
Paul Riley with the North Carolina Courage in 2019. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos)
“Like a God”
For most of the past two decades, a willingness to remain silent has been a dominant custom in women’s football. As the sport tried, failed, and tried again to gain a foothold in the United States, any controversy was seen as a threat to the sport’s existence, with the potential to shut down a team or even an entire league. Women in sport felt empowered because they understood they should keep quiet about disrespectful coaches and abuse from front office workers, poor pay and substandard facilities. Discussing some personal relationships was also discouraged. And it was more than just hiding the truth, it was putting a happy face on it.
The NWSL (the third professional women’s league in the United States) is now in its ninth year, but the players are far from safe. Approximately 75% of them earn less than $31,000 per year, which is more than $15,000 below the average income for women in the United States. The vast majority feel like an underpaid, replaceable cog, a missed tackle, or a misstep from the pitch after a career that failed.
“There was definitely this common idea that because two leagues have collapsed in the past, the NWSL is sort of the last hope for a women’s soccer league,” said US national team forward Alex Morgan. “Because of that, I feel like there’s this idea that we should be thankful for what we have and we shouldn’t be asking big questions — or asking any questions at all.”
But over the past 14 months, a growing number of players and team members have broken the code of silence, asked questions and spoken out against suspected wrongdoers. Last year, Dell Loy Hansen was pressured into selling Utah Royals FC after reports of racist comments and a sexist culture in the club’s front office. Utah also placed head coach Craig Harrington on administrative leave; Sources told The Athletic that Harrington made comments of a sexual nature to staff, which he denied. In August, an assistant manager at the Washington Spirit left the club after making inappropriate comments to players at a party. Spirit head coach Richie Burke has been suspended pending investigation into allegations of verbal and emotional abuse of players; On Tuesday, the NWSL announced that he had been fired for cause. In July, Gotham FC general manager Alyse LaHue fired following the findings of an investigation related to the league’s new anti-harassment policy. She has denied any wrongdoing.
There wasn’t a single trigger. It was incident after incident, building on itself, revealing the magnitude of the sport’s problems and leading players to understand that the only way to make big changes was to refuse to remain silent.
“What we’re seeing this season is the beginning of a reckoning,” Meghann Burke, director of the NWSL Players’ Association (no relation to Richie), told The Athletic last month.
Paul Riley, a native of Liverpool, England, began coaching men’s college football, then minor division men’s football. He made the leap into women’s soccer in 2006, taking charge of the Long Island Fury in the second-tier Women’s Premier Soccer League before moving to Independence in 2009. Riley earned his U.S. Soccer Pro License 2018 as part of third grade Completing the year-long process for the country’s highest coaching license. Current USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski was in the same class. Riley has also struggled at various points to coach the national team.
Riley won a championship with the Western New York Flash in 2016 before they moved to North Carolina. He then went on to win back-to-back NWSL Coach of the Year awards in 2017 and 2018, and Courage won the NWSL Championship Trophy in 2018 and 2019. His success, credentials and wealth – mostly from a successful youth club and football school – made him, as one former player put it, “like a god”.
The Athletic spoke to more than a dozen players, representing every team Riley has coached since 2010, as well as a further 10 sources from across women’s football. The majority asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions given Riley’s impact on the sport. In addition to his alleged sexual assault on Farrelly, Riley led Farrelly and Portland Thorns teammate Mana Shim back to his apartment after a night of drinking in 2015 and urged them to kiss while he watched, according to Farrelly and Shim. Riley told them that if they complied with his request, the team would avoid a grueling conditioning session. He also unsolicited sent a lurid picture of himself to both women, Farrelly and Shim said, and on one occasion invited Shim to his hotel room for a “film session” and then greeted her in just his underwear. Farrelly, Shim and several other Thorns players from 2014-15 said Riley also made inappropriate comments about her weight and sexual orientation.
Members of Independence, Fury and Thorns told The Athletic of several nights where Riley drank heavily with his players. In 2015 and 2016, he held week-long “retreats” at his 10,992-square-foot home on Long Island. Players swam in his pool and drank alcohol that he provided. Many women said these were not voluntary gatherings; When she or her teammates tried to go elsewhere during the week (to New York City for the night or to visit family or friends nearby), Riley told them not to go.
“He’s really got the kind of social culture that he wants on the team,” said a player who played for him at Portland. “He has the authority. People don’t really push him into it, everyone accepts that he’s just the way he is. You are trying to survive in his hierarchy.”
Riley responded to a list of 23 questions about his alleged behavior with an email, stating that the majority of the allegations were “completely untrue.” He wrote, “I’ve never had sex with these players or made sexual advances towards them.” He said he met players sometimes and hit the pub occasionally, “but I don’t take them out drinking.” He acknowledged that throughout his career “there’s a chance I said something along the way that offended someone,” but he added, “I don’t put my players down, comment on their weight, or discuss their personal relationships.” He also denied, holding film sessions in his hotel room.
The North Carolina Courage said in a statement Wednesday: “When we hired Paul, we made clear expectations of the job and our club’s values, and from what we know he lived up to those expectations. If there are players or staff who wish to come forward as per NWSL League guidelines, we encourage them to report any inappropriate behavior as we will continue to uphold the standard of maintaining a safe and positive environment for everyone at the club.
Courage fired Riley on Thursday. The club said in a statement: “In light of today’s reports, North Carolina Courage has fired head coach Paul Riley effective immediately following very serious allegations of misconduct.” Sean Nahas has been appointed caretaker manager. In addition, U.S. Soccer announced that Riley’s coaching license would be suspended.
On September 16, 11 days after the end of the 2015 season, Shim filed a complaint with the Portland Thorns front office about Riley’s behavior. Shim also revealed his behavior to Morgan, who confirmed the exchange to The Athletic. The Thorns investigated and announced on September 23 that Riley’s contract would not be renewed. On Wednesday, Thorns owner Merritt Paulson said the 2015 investigation found breaches of team policy, which played a role in the decision to let Riley go. Paulson added, “Everything has been shared with the league.”
Riley was hired by the Flash five months later.
After the NWSL introduced a new anti-harassment policy earlier this year, Farrelly and Shim contacted the league to request a new investigation into Riley’s behavior. League Commissioner Lisa Baird thanked them for raising their concerns, but told the two former players that the 2015 complaint was “being investigated to completion” and that she was unable to share any details. When Baird was briefed this week on The Athletic’s coverage of Riley, including Farrelly’s claims that were not part of the 2015 Thorns investigation, he chose not to respond. An NWSL spokesman said in a statement: “The league was contacted earlier this year about an investigation that was completed in 2015. With no new or additional information, the matter was closed. However, the behavior described by former players has absolutely no place in our league and will not be tolerated.”
Baird and others within the league have come under fire recently when teams have expelled coaches and other staff without explicitly stating or disguising the reasons. For example: The Spirit initially announced that Richie Burke would be stepping down from his position due to ill health and moving to a front office role; A day later, a Washington Post story caused the team to change its official statement and announce an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing.
“I’m so freaking tired of this bullshit,” Portland Thorn Meghan Klingenberg wrote on Twitter after Spirit treated Burke. “As a seasoned player, I call on the NWSL, owners and GMs to protect players. In the field, in the cab and on the road. It’s not okay to just let an organization member step down and sweep things under the rug. What happens to the next players who play under this manager?
Sinead Farrelly with Philadelphia’s independence in 2011. (Robyn McNeil/ISI Photos)
“I felt busy”
About 40 miles outside of Philadelphia, in the Downingtown neighborhood, there is an extended-a-stay hotel off Route 30, in the middle of large suburban shopping centers and across from a Wegmans supermarket. This is where the Philadelphia Independence hosted some of their players in 2010 and 2011, along with Paul Riley.
It was cramped, with a college dorm feel. The environment led to lowered borders. One player said she saw teammates “crying outside [Riley’s] door at night.” Two players said that after another Independence player suffered a serious injury, Riley let the injured player sleep in his room. (Riley denied this in his email.)
He also regularly took the team to an Irish pub, Kildare’s, in nearby West Chester for a drink. This wasn’t just the occasional drink or two, but long nights of binge drinking, with Riley often footing the bill.
“Paul would be there and buy everyone drinks,” said a former Independence player.
Farrelly was living at her parents’ house that season; it meant a slight increase in her salary as the team didn’t have to pay those expenses. While she wasn’t around the Extend-a-Stay hotel, she was a regular at Kildare’s. Despite the size of the place and the presence of a dance floor, she said she sat next to Riley at the bar most nights, where he would ask her probing questions. “There’s this feeling that he wants to control your life outside of the stadium as well, whether that’s what you eat or who you meet,” said one Philadelphia player.
Eventually, Farrelly began sharing deeply personal information with Riley. He gave her a nickname, Shea, and his attentiveness made her think he genuinely cared about her.
“He made comments about people’s relationship status and their sexual orientation, everything was important to him that would affect the performance of the game depending on what you were doing outside of practice,” Farrelly said. “He wanted to know everything, and it felt natural to share that stuff.”
In May of that season, Riley pulled Farrelly out of the game at halftime in a game in Atlanta, a humiliation she didn’t understand. She would learn after the game that in the stands that day was an assistant coach from the US women’s national team who had flown to Atlanta to bring Farrelly to national team camp on short notice to replace an injured player.
There were expectations that her appointment, despite having little professional experience, meant a real chance of sneaking into the 2011 World Cup squad. Only two camps remained before the team left for Germany and the rest of the squad was named.
When Farrelly returned from that national team camp a few days later, she met Riley in his office. He was upset that the association called her without involving him, she said. Ten players in Riley’s coaching days described how he would “beat up” and “talk shit” at the national team, and he has frequently spoken about his frustration with the team’s schedule and its impact on club play. Farrelly did not miss an Independence match because of the call-up, but she said Riley told her she had been disloyal to him and her Independence teammates.
US Soccer called her to the final pre-World Cup camp scheduled for June, but Farrelly surprisingly declined, saying she wanted to stay in Philadelphia. At the next practice session, “I could tell he was proud of my decision.”
By the end of the WPS season, Farrelly had made 14 appearances with the club and started 13 games. The Independence finished second in the regular season standings and then defeated magicJack 2-0 in the playoff semifinals — a big surprise considering the Florida team’s national team players (who had an owner who instructed players to address him ) were a big surprise as “Papa”).
In the August 27 final in Rochester, a powerful Western New York Flash team defeated underdog Independence on penalties. It was a heartbreaking loss, and after the game, the Philadelphia players and staff went out as a group to drown their heartache. Several players recalled someone from Independence’s front office renting out a bar. “Free alcohol, no limits,” said one player.
The players then decided to head back to their hotel en masse to keep the party going. Players recall cramming as many people as possible into a rented passenger van, to the point that people started sitting on other people’s laps. Farrelly got in and walked to the back of the van, where she said Riley was sitting.
“That is the thing. He’s with us, right? He’s part of it with us,” she said.
She said she sat on his lap, although even at that moment it felt odd to do so. She said Riley then grabbed her hips and she immediately felt the touch cross a boundary.
“I felt challenged. That word honestly describes it perfectly to me because I feel like he was walking around looking at his prospects and concentrating on me. He claimed me; this is what his touch felt like. I just remember thinking, is anyone else watching this?” Given her age and career, I felt “under his control” from that moment on.
The party moved to the hotel lobby. The numbers continued to drop as people finally called it a day and returned singly or in pairs to their respective rooms on the team’s hotel block, all on the same floor. Farrelly and Riley landed in front of his room, she said, and they both went inside. Farrelly said she felt Riley forced her to have sex with him and she spent the night in his room. When she woke up the next morning, she said he told her she followed him to his room and, “Shea, we’re taking this to our graves.”
“That moment changed my entire life,” Farrelly said. “As a person and as a player, I was never the same.”
She tried to pretend it didn’t happen and vowed she’d never talk about it again. But she said Riley kept bringing it up. He didn’t help her bury her secret. He kept it alive.
“The First Panic Attack I Ever Had”
That September, Farrelly went back to the University of Virginia to finish her senior semester. Despite a slight strain on the course and returning to familiar territory, she found no consolation. Her friends had all graduated the spring before and she was left alone in a dormitory to simmer in secret.
“It really didn’t matter where I was, it was like a haunting,” she said.
Riley texted her frequently during this time, Farrelly said. At one point he called her and told her he was coming to Charlottesville for a coaching conference. He invited Farrelly to dinner and said they should meet to discuss her contract for the 2012 season – even when WPS was on the brink of collapse.
They went downtown; Farrelly recalls wearing a shirt and skirt combo, something any college student would have worn. Before dinner, they met the same USWNT assistant coach who had picked Farrelly up at camp, and Farrelly recalls feeling like that coach was giving them an odd look. (The trainer did not remember seeing them, but said they attended the conference.)
At dinner, Riley ordered a bottle of Riesling. After dinner, Farrelly said the two had liquor at a bar. At the end of the night, Riley took her back to his Charlottesville hotel room, and she said she felt compelled to have sex with him again.
After completing her final semester in December, Farrelly headed to Washington, D.C. to practice with a friend ahead of the 2012 season — but Riley called to inform her that WPS was collapsing. She returned to her parents’ house in Philadelphia, and it was in the basement of that house when Riley sent her what she said was a photo of herself in nothing but compression shorts. She didn’t know what to answer, so she didn’t.
Riley went to Long Island to train the Fury, this time in a new, semi-professional division of the WPSL that planned to host a handful of WPS teams. At first, Farrelly turned down Riley’s offer to join this team, but her former Independence teammates influenced her. She signed up later that season than everyone else, but a teammate got through with accommodation for her – there was an extra bed with her host family.
On and off the soccer field, she never felt settled. During the season she had a week off and she went out drinking alone every night. She called her behavior “ruthless”. After this break, she drove to the first training session herself, but couldn’t bring herself to get out of the car.
“It was the first panic attack I’ve ever had,” she said. “I remember looking up at the sky and wishing I didn’t exist and thinking I can’t do this anymore. And then it seemed like I was a crappy teammate for not showing up for training where I would have done anything for my teammates.”
Farrelly tried and failed to keep her away from Riley and she also watched him approach another player on the Fury. Eventually, Riley started drinking with the two.
One night in the summer of 2012, after the trio moved from a bar to a hotel lobby on a road trip, Riley stepped away from the bar to book a hotel room for the night. (Riley doubled on a few road trips with an assistant coach.) Riley nodded for the two players to follow him, and they did. The three never spoke to each other, Farrelly said, but they went to Riley’s room, where he had sex with both of them.
Afterwards, Riley addressed the evening with Farrelly, but with her teammate, “We never talked about it. Nothing was ever said.” (The other player did not respond to a request for comment.)
Despite all that happened, Farrelly remained convinced that appeasing Riley was crucial to her career. For her, Riley was the central figure, not only for her confidence on the field, but also for her livelihood as a player with his influence in the emerging professional league. He called FC Kansas City’s technical staff prior to the 2013 NWSL inaugural season and helped her secure a spot on the roster. There were parts of that first season that she liked, but she still struggled — even if she looked good on the outside.
In December 2013, Portland hired Riley to replace Cindy Parlow Cone. Portland was the franchise Farrelly most wanted to play for, a winning team that played in front of a record crowd of more than 15,000 people. But more than that, she had fallen in love with the city on road trips; she could see herself in the nature of Multnomah County, the peace it could bring her.
“Paul said he was taking me to Portland, and I figured I’d find out when I got there,” she said.
By January 2014, Farrelly was a Thorn.
“I felt from the start that I owed him something”
Before the start of the 2014 season, Thorn’s general manager Gavin Wilkinson called Meleana “Mana” Shim into his office.
She came off a breakout rookie campaign after earning a berth with the Thorns through an open tryout after being passed over in the league’s first collegiate draft. Despite an experienced midfielder, Shim became a regular under Parlow Cone, scoring five goals and adding two assists. She started in both playoff games as the Thorns won the title. Shim was only 21 years old and was called up to the US national under-23 team.
It came as a surprise when it was left unprotected in the 2014 draft expansion. Alongside her talent, Shim had become a fan favorite: unashamedly herself, loud and tough, the little Spitfire from Hawaii. She has never attempted to be anything but her authentic self, a virtue particularly valued in the city of Portland. She was aware that her honesty had rubbed some in the Thorns organization the wrong way and that the Thorns had a stacked list, but she never considered herself expendable.
When Houston Dash picked her with her fourth pick in the expansion draft, she was disappointed. She loved life in Portland and had signed a lease with her partner for a new apartment. She would have to give up her whole life to go to Houston. She reached out to the Thorns’ new head coach, Paul Riley, to ask if the team had a chance of keeping her. He promised to do what he could. A week later, she was traded back to Portland in a deal during the College Draft.
“I felt like I owed him from the start because he worked to get me back,” Shim said.
Shim assumed meeting Wilkinson in his office was to discuss her role on the team for the upcoming season. Instead, she said Wilkinson instructed her not to be so vocal about off-field matters. Shim had made a public appearance the day before the 2013 NWSL Championship; She had also discussed her fears about the 2014 enlargement draft. She said Wilkinson’s tone was friendly but the message was clear: We’re not talking about being gay or being proud. We play football. Wilkinson also praised one of the team’s best players and her reluctance to talk about anything but football in interviews.
Shim said she was stunned in that office. Selbst im liberalen Portland, in der Premier-Franchise der Liga, die gerade den Titel gewonnen hat, wurde Schweigen geschätzt.
Shim erzählte ihrem damaligen Partner sowie einem Teamkollegen, Morgan, von dem Treffen und Wilkinsons Anweisungen; Beide Frauen sagten The Athletic, sie hätten sich an diese Gespräche erinnert. Am Mittwoch sagte Wilkinson, es sei „Bullshit“, dass er Shim oder einer anderen Spielerin sagen würde, ihr Privatleben nicht öffentlich zu diskutieren. „Das ist viele, viele Jahre her“, fügte er hinzu und sagte dann, sein Verhalten über 10 Jahre bei den Thorns and Timbers spreche für sich. Das Team fügte in einer Erklärung hinzu: „Gavin hat Mana oder einem Thorns- oder Timbers-Spieler kategorisch nie mitgeteilt, politische oder persönliche Ansichten nicht zu diskutieren.“
Der Kader der Thorns 2014 umfasste einige der besten Spieler der Liga (Morgan, Christine Sinclair, Tobin Heath). Bei Paul Riley entstand dadurch eine andere Dynamik als bei seinen bisherigen Stationen. Diese Spieler würden sich nicht mit ihm an der Bar betrinken; Sie haben ihm ihre Karriere nicht zu verdanken. Also habe er sie meistens in Ruhe gelassen, sagten acht Thorns-Spieler und konzentrierten sich auf Frauen am Rande des Mannschaftsbogens.
Shim war einer dieser Randspieler, aber Riley hat sich in seiner ersten Saison in Portland nicht viel mit ihr beschäftigt, außer um sie herabzusetzen. „Er hat mir das Gefühl gegeben, klein zu sein. Er sagte Dinge, die andere Leute innehalten und sich fragen ließen, was los war, warum mochte er mich nicht“, sagte Shim.
Er würde sie und andere Spieler im Team „Idioten“ und „Motherfucker“ und „verdammte Peinlichkeiten“ nennen. Er kommentierte auch ihr Gewicht, ein häufiges Thema, das Riley mit seinen Spielern ansprach. Vier Spieler sagten, er würde sich sofort äußern, wenn ein Teammitglied auch nur ein paar Pfund zunehme. Er sagte einer Spielerin, dass sie ihren Traum, es in die Nationalmannschaft zu schaffen, wegen ihres Gewichts nie verwirklichen würde. Er beschimpfte auch einmal eine Portland-Spielerin vor dem Team, weil sie ihr Kind zum Spiel gebracht hatte, und sagte, die Thorns hätten deswegen verloren. (Riley nannte diese Behauptung eine von vielen „Fabrikationen“ in dieser Geschichte.)
Riley ermutigte und unterstützte die Spieler manchmal, aber es war oft die heiße und kalte Herangehensweise, die er mit Farrelly in Philadelphia anwendete – Lob und Kritik vermischten sich auf eine Weise, die sie aus dem Gleichgewicht brachte, ständig besorgt über den Verlust von Spielzeit und einen Trade in der Zwischensaison das würde ihr Leben entwurzeln.
„Es ist fast wie eine missbräuchliche Beziehung, auch wenn sie nicht die sexuelle Grenze überschreitet, weil er gibt und nimmt“, sagte ein ehemaliger Thorn. “The girls just want to please their coaches, they want to do the right thing. Paul said he invests in you, then he takes it away from you.”
Shim sagte, sie habe härter und härter gearbeitet, selbst als sie Spielzeit verlor, aber sie hatte das Gefühl, dass nichts, was sie tat, Rileys Respekt verdienen würde. In der Zwischenzeit beobachtete sie, wie Farrelly im Januar 2014 zum Team stieß und ihren Platz in der Nähe des Zentrums von Rileys Umlaufbahn und in der Startaufstellung wieder einnahm. Ein Thorns-Spieler beschrieb die Riley/Farrelly-Dynamik in Portland als „fast wie auf eine seltsame elterliche Weise“.
Während der Saison 2014 begann Farrelly mit einer ihrer Teamkolleginnen auszugehen. Riley wurde auf diese Beziehung fixiert. Ein Thorns-Spieler sagte, er habe sie beiseite gezogen und sie gebeten, nach Farrelly Ausschau zu halten; dass Farrelly nicht schwul sein konnte und vor dem Teamkollegen geschützt werden musste, mit dem sie jetzt zusammen war. Er brachte es auch wiederholt mit Farrelly zur Sprache und sagte ihr, sie sei „zu heiß, um eine Lesbe zu sein“ und keine „echte Lesbe“, weil sie zuvor mit einem Mann zusammen war. Laut Shim und drei anderen Teammitgliedern brachte er Farrelly und die Frau, mit der sie zusammen war, zur Sprache.
Riley und Farrelly hatten nie Sex, während sie in Portland war, aber sie sagte, sie habe nie aufgehört, das Gefühl zu haben, er könne sie jederzeit in eine Position bringen, in der sie ihn nicht ablehnen könne.
„Ich hatte diese Tagträume davon, verletzt zu werden und nicht mehr spielen zu müssen“, sagte Farrelly.
Dann, im Juli, brach sie auf dem Feld gegen die Red Stars zusammen. Shim und andere im Team erinnern sich, dass es sich um ein „medizinisches“ Problem und nicht um eine Verletzung handelte. Farrelly returned to training and attended the team’s games, but she did not appear in a match for the remainder of the season.
“I remember when I collapsed, it felt like a relief.”
Meleana Shim with the Portland Thorns in 2014. (Andrew Katsampes/ISI Photos)
“He was instigating us”
Ahead of the 2015 season, the Thorns traveled to Arizona for preseason preparations. The team stayed in rooms at a hotel/casino, and some members of the team gambled at their hotel during the day around training sessions, then went out drinking and gambling at night, sometimes with Riley. One player got so intoxicated she was kicked out of the casino.
Farrelly was there, and she hung out a bit with the team in the casino, drinking. She was trying to hold on to her career, wanting to be away from Riley but also still feeling her future in the game depended on him.
While the partying in Arizona and over that season didn’t often include the top players, a good portion of the team, including Shim, became entangled in the “social culture” that Riley had cultivated at previous stops. “I don’t know any other way to describe it. … There were not good boundaries from the get-go (that season),” Shim said.
It was in Arizona that Riley shifted his approach with Shim, she said. After a season of tearing her down and at times ignoring her completely, she almost suddenly became a favorite. He joked around with her more. He said that she had potential; he gave her a to-do list of elements of her game to work on. She was in the in-group, finally. He would mention her name during film sessions, bring her up during pre-game talks. They were small signs, but she noticed them all. Her confidence grew.
Heading into the first week of the NWSL regular season, Riley started talking her up to the media. After the team’s opening match, a 4-1 win over the Boston Breakers, Riley said, “As we said in preseason about Mana, she came in great shape and looks like a different player from last year.”
As with Farrelly, Riley would build Shim up, but then he would suddenly switch, heaping criticism she felt was unfair.
Riley also started to text Shim more often, she said. He asked her to get coffee with him while they were on road trips. He requested her presence to watch film more often. But Riley would sometimes change the time and location of their film sessions, moving them from his office at the stadium to his apartment (in a building across from Providence Park) after hours.
“He did it really casually. It was just like, ‘Hey, I’m kind of busy, let’s switch this,’” she said. She felt like she didn’t have a choice, even though she knew it was inappropriate.
That May, after a draw at home in Providence Park against Washington, much of the team headed to a bar near the stadium called The River Pig Saloon. Riley gave the bartender his credit card; “Get the girls whatever they want,” he said.
Eventually, the only members of the organization left in the bar were Riley, assistant coach Skip Thorp, and Shim and Farrelly. The two women had grown closer over the course of the 2015 season in no small part because Riley assigned Shim and Farrelly to share a hotel room on road trips.
After the bar closed, as the quartet walked along a street near Providence Park, Shim desperately sought an establishment where she could use the restroom. As they walked, Riley once again brought up Shim’s and Farrelly’s sexual orientation, the two women said. After a bit, Riley offered up the bathroom in his apartment for Shim to use. Thorp walked up to the apartment with them, but left soon after. (Thorp did not respond to an email seeking comment.) Shim and Farrelly were now alone with Riley in the apartment.
Shim went to the bathroom. Both players remember Riley fetching more alcoholic drinks from the fridge. Farrelly sat down on his sofa, waiting for Shim to return. When she did, Riley handed her a drink. Farrelly recalls Riley turning on one of the music channels on his television, and then he requested that Shim dance with him.
“I was frozen, I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I don’t know, it was just so weird,” Shim said. The two women said that Riley came up behind Shim and was trying to “grind” against her. “It was really uncomfortable: What’s happening? Do you think this is okay?”
Riley stepped away to use the restroom himself, and Farrelly and Shim discussed the easiest way to leave. They headed for the door, but worried if they left without saying goodbye that Riley would be upset. When Riley returned, he asked if the two women hooked up on road trips. They did not, they told him.
“He was instigating us,” Farrelly said. Riley asked them to kiss each other before they left. He gave them an incentive: kiss, and the entire team wouldn’t have to run the suicide mile that week. “Everyone hated this fucking fitness drill.” Farrelly said.
Farrelly and Shim looked at each other and, feeling like they were boxed in, they kissed briefly. He then asked them to stay, but they turned him down and left. In the lobby of the apartment building, Shim was in disbelief. She told Farrelly that she wanted to tell her partner what happened. Farrelly told her that they would simply forget it ever happened and move on with their lives. They agreed to not tell anyone.
At training later that week, when Riley told the team they wouldn’t be running the suicide mile, one player joked to him: “What happened? Did you just wake up and have the best day of your entire life?”
After that night, Shim said Riley trained even more attention on her. The texts got more frequent, and he upgraded from asking her out to coffee to asking her out to dinner.
Most nights, she made excuses to avoid meeting up with him, but one evening he convinced Shim to go to dinner. He took her to Serratto, an Italian restaurant in Portland. Shim said she tried to dress up enough that she wouldn’t look out of place.
“I remember feeling very uncomfortable, because my coach was trying to take me on a date. He told me we were going to talk about game stuff, because that’s what he always said,” Shim said.
At the restaurant, he encouraged her to order a drink; he told her to order whatever she wanted. She drank white wine and ordered ossobuco.
“He was trying to be very flirtatious and out in the open. Portland was smaller than it is now. This was a mile from the stadium. … But I was also like, what is this guy doing? It’s so obvious. He was flirting with the server and really treating me like I was his date, saying, ‘Oh, whatever the lady wants.’”
Shim told her partner at the time that she was meeting up with her teammates, and she was terrified someone from the team would see them out together. “I was doing the best I could to hold the line to maintain my job and make sure I didn’t upset him, while not totally compromising myself,” she said. After dinner, Shim said Riley asked her for a ride home, but she declined.
Shim was already worried about how to manage saying no to him again. It was more than just the threat of losing playing time or the possibility she could then get traded. Riley had worked to keep her in Portland after she was picked in the expansion draft. She owed him.
His focus on her continued. He would ask her to swap seats with others on airplanes so she would sit next to him. He texted more frequently, even as Shim didn’t always reply. Again and again, he turned the conversation to Shim’s sexual orientation.
“It was just gross,” she said.
Finally, on a road trip in June, when they shared a hotel room, Shim told Farrelly the extent of what was happening with Riley, and that he had requested Shim’s presence for a film review session at the hotel.
“I was terrified for her and wanted to protect her,” Farrelly said. ”I was terrified of it being so close to the secret that I was taking to the grave that I had stuffed down to this point.”
Shim showed her a photo Riley had sent. It was him, in his compression shorts.
“My stomach dropped. My body was having a trauma response. I’ve been there, I know this,” Farrelly said.
At that moment, Farrelly did not share with Shim that she had previously received a similar photo, or her own experiences with Riley. But they worked to come up with a plan to manage his request that Shim watch film in his room: If Shim didn’t return from Riley’s room within a few minutes, Farrelly would knock on his door.
Riley had asked Shim to bring him a bag of chips, so she stopped by a vending machine on her way. When she got to his room, Riley opened the door so that he was behind it, and Shim had to step all the way in. He closed the door behind her, and when she turned around, she saw that he was only in his underwear, which were white briefs.
Shim said Riley told her to get on his hotel bed to watch film, but he hadn’t prepared anything for her to watch; he had been watching another game on TV when she arrived. She told him they had a game tomorrow, and she had to prepare. He tried to persuade her to stay, but she walked out of the room.
Riley’s advances and the partying continued, including during a team retreat at Riley’s spacious Long Island house during a June break for the 2015 World Cup. Riley catered food and provided alcohol. One night, he hired a psychic medium to provide dinner readings for the players. Some players got drunk and swam in his pool. “Everybody else (in the NWSL) is going on vacation at this point, and we’re in this house castle on Long Island,” one player said. And Riley wouldn’t let them leave, according to four players there. (Riley denied that, saying he never prevented players from going out at the team retreat.)
After that week, Shim went to Canada to attend a World Cup match with Riley, who had been lobbying to go for weeks, offering to pay for her hotel and ticket. Shim believed he would try to have sex with her there. While she traveled to Vancouver for the quarterfinal match between England and Canada, she made sure she was never alone with Riley during the trip.
In July, as Riley’s focus on her continued, Shim reached a breaking point. She called her sister and shared what was happening and her confusion about what to do next. Her sister confirmed Shim’s mid-season disclosure to The Athletic, and remembered Shim recounting the invitation to the World Cup and the incident at the hotel when Riley was in his underwear. Shim then also told her then-partner, who recalled Shim telling her about the kiss and then, later, about some of Riley’s other behavior. The next day, at her partner’s urging, Shim contacted Riley via email, asking him to leave her alone.
He texted back that he wanted to meet with her, Shim said, and she declined.
Shim also told Morgan about some of Riley’s behavior. While Morgan couldn’t remember the exact timing of the conversation, she recalls hearing how aggressively Riley pressured Shim to go to Vancouver and being alarmed by that. She vowed to help Shim make an official complaint to management. But the two women couldn’t figure out how to do it in a way that would protect Shim from potential retaliation.
“I tried everything to find an HR contact, a way through the league to anonymously report an incident, any sort of contact that would not be traced back to her because it would potentially jeopardize her job to report this sort of incident,” Morgan said.
Eventually, Shim and Morgan identified Nancy Garcia Ford, the Thorns’ HR director (Portland’s first full-time one), but there was no way to submit the complaint anonymously. Toward the end of the season, Shim (with her partner’s help) started working on an email detailing the major incidents between her and Riley. After the end of the regular season, on Sept. 16, 2015, she sent the email to Merritt Paulson, the team’s owner, Wilkinson, Garcia Ford and Riley. She also forwarded it to Jeff Plush, who was then the NWSL commissioner.
Shim did not recall getting a response from Paulson. Plush emailed back at two points: later that day, telling Shim that he would follow up soon, then a few days later to say that he had spoken with Paulson and the league was monitoring the Thorns’ investigation. Wilkinson emailed her on behalf of himself and Paulson, stating that they took her complaint seriously. Garcia Ford responded via email, asking for a meeting.
Garcia Ford was the only one present at that meeting, which took place within days. Shim said Garcia Ford took notes as she described the allegations involving Riley. Shim said that Garcia Ford expressed that Shim did not have a legal claim because Shim was unable to provide any corroborating evidence. She had deleted the texts from Riley on her phone and on her iCloud account earlier in the season. He had encouraged her to do so, she said, and she complied, in part, because she worried about her partner finding them. Garcia Ford offered to connect her with an IT staffer at the team, but Shim told her she had already been to Apple in an attempt to recover the texts, and they were unable to do so.
Farrelly was also interviewed by Garcia Ford, a meeting that lasted about 20 minutes, Farrelly said. She detailed the incident with herself, Shim and Riley in his apartment where he had persuaded them to kiss each other, and she confirmed that she had seen the inappropriate photo Riley had sent Shim, as well as other texts from him. She said nothing of her own experiences with Riley. Morgan said no one from the team contacted her, even though she was listed on Shim’s complaint as a person with knowledge of Riley’s actions toward Shim.
On Sept. 23, the Thorns announced that Riley would not be retained for a third season. From the outside, it looked like the poor results (the team finished in sixth place, missing the playoffs for the first time) had forced Portland’s hand — and that Riley wanted to return home to Long Island, to his family and youth clubs. On Wednesday, Paulson acknowledged that the findings of the investigation factored in the team’s decision.
“Immediately when we became aware of these allegations at the end of our 2015 season, Paul Riley was placed on administrative leave and a thorough investigation advised by outside counsel was conducted, working closely with the NWSL league office,” the team said in a statement provided on Wednesday. “The investigation found no unlawful activity, but that Mr. Riley had violated our policies. For this reason we have decided not to renew his contract. The results of the investigation have been shared with the NWSL League Office.”
In regards to the probe into his alleged behavior in Portland, Riley wrote in his email: “I was aware of a complaint. I was interviewed and cleared by the team after an investigation. My contract was not renewed because our results were not very good and I was interested in returning to the East Coast for a host of different reasons, including marriage and businesses.”
One month after Riley’s exit from Portland, Farrelly was traded to the Boston Breakers. At the urging of her partner, she emailed Wilkinson, asking about the reason for her trade. They met in his office the next day. Farrelly said Wilkinson told her the trade had nothing to do with Riley or the investigation into his behavior, but when she brought up Riley’s potential to coach in the league again, Farrelly said he avoided answering.
Shim went on loan to Japan that offseason, and when she returned to Portland for the next season, she said no one ever talked to her about Riley’s alleged behavior again.
On Feb. 19, 2016, the Western New York Flash announced Riley as their new head coach.
How was a coach who, according to his team, had been fired, at least in part, for the findings of an investigation into alleged misconduct, able to return to an NWSL sideline so quickly?
Flash vice president Aaran Lines, who hired Riley, wrote in an email: “Prior to his hire, the club was aware of an internal investigation involving Paul while he was the head coach of the Portland Thorns. No unlawful activity was found through the investigation, and the Flash followed all league protocol in the hiring process and contract approval in conjunction with the NWSL league office.”
Former NWSL commissioner Jeff Plush, who according to his 2016 email to Shim was “monitoring” the investigation and who Paulson said was fully informed of the probe’s findings, declined to answer questions about Riley. Plush, who stepped down from the NWSL in March 2017, is now CEO of USA Curling.
Sinead Farrelly in 2021. (Carolyn Fong)
“There’s nothing that protects the player”
This season, Riley’s North Carolina Courage are currently in third place in NWSL and, despite struggling through their last four games, are likely to again be a threat in the playoffs. Over the past few years, Riley has — as one Carolina player phrased it — “laid low.” Some of his disturbing behavior persists, two players said, especially commenting on players’ weight and bodies. And another Long Island retreat took place during a break in the 2016 season.
Riley, now 57 years old and separated from his wife, recently had his first child with a woman he met while in Utah for the 2020 Challenge Cup (“I have just become a father for the first time and am delighted to be a Dad,” Riley wrote). One source said that he had been asking Courage players at training about newborns, like how many diaper changes are typically required each day.
As Riley’s stature within the game has risen over the past few years, Farrelly and Shim quietly exited the sport. Farrelly was involved in a car accident in the offseason before heading to Boston, and she ended her career not long after. She now lives in California and works two jobs while running her own side business.
The death of Shim’s father in January 2016 hit her hard, and under new Thorns coach Mark Parsons, her minutes dropped again that season. In August 2017, Portland waived Shim so she could head to Sweden, where she made two appearances for Växjö DFF. The next season, she finally ended up playing for the Houston Dash, but her rookie season in Portland remained her career high point. She retired in July 2019. She is now in law school in Hawaii.
“It took me years away from the game to gain the awareness of how power imbalance works and to be able to tell people close to me what happened,” Farrelly said.
The #MeToo movement, and later the introduction of Angel City FC into the NWSL, helped Farrelly find a wider perspective. She looked at the Angel City FC ownership group, with women from multiple industries and former players, and thought, “This is what the league should be about.”
She knew that she had to tell Shim what had actually happened, the full extent of how their paths crossed with the Thorns. Farrelly was at her apartment in Portland when she spoke with Shim over the phone, finally sharing the secret she had been told by Riley to take to her grave.
“My first reaction was: Holy shit. This all makes sense. This guy has a pattern. Holy shit. He’s still coaching in the league. We have to do something,” Shim said.
The two women got into a group chat with Morgan and discussed how to prevent abuse from happening to others. One key question emerged from those chats: Why was there no real league policy governing the treatment of players?
“I asked for a player’s handbook last year,” Morgan said. “It was an eight-page document and I specifically asked that the protection of the player be seen in it. There is absolutely none. There is nothing that protects the player. It’s about social media, it’s about protecting the league, protecting every club, not player protection. I was shocked, but at the same time we saw that if we don’t fight and fight absolutely for ourselves, we won’t get anything.
With Morgan acting as the organizer, 240 players signed a letter that was sent to Baird, the NWSL commissioner, on March 9. The players asked for nine specific elements to ensure safe and inclusive workplaces, including multiple avenues to submit complaints and assurances that the league would protect any player from retaliation.
Six days later, Shim emailed Baird directly. Attached to her email was the original complaint she shared with the Thorns in 2015. She asked Baird to address the “apparent failure” of the original investigation into Riley’s behavior in Portland.
Baird responded the next day, to thank her and to tell her she planned to meet with Morgan and other players to listen to their overarching concerns about player safety. She did not address Shim’s request to revisit her original complaint. Shim replied, asking Baird to confirm an investigation would take place. She did not get an immediate response.
Within a month, the NWSL’s Anti-Harassment Policy for a Safe Work Environment was in place, though it was not publicly announced until April 13. The policy is 16 pages long, and prohibits harassment, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct — as the document reads, “Sexual misconduct may occur where effective consent cannot be given to an encounter because of lack of consent, sexual exploitation, or the use of Coercion, Force, Intimidation, or a Power Imbalance.”
Shim continued to press Baird for a response. On April 9, Baird wrote to her that the league had “reviewed (their) files,” and that she could confirm that Shim’s 2015 complaint was investigated, though she was not at liberty to share any further information. She then touted the new anti-harassment policy.
On Apr. 28, Farrelly sent her own email to Baird and cc’d the HR email address listed in the anti-harassment policy for complaints and reporting. She wrote that she had “not only witnessed but also experienced firsthand extremely inappropriate conduct” from Riley, and that she had participated in the 2015 investigation conducted by the Thorns. She claimed that the Thorns had not investigated troubling behavior by Riley she detailed in her meeting with Garcia Ford, which included “harassing comments about my personal relationships and sexual orientation.” She also wrote that “numerous instances of severe misconduct” by Riley had taken place prior to the NWSL’s formation.
She added that she was available for an interview, and that she was “deeply concerned” for the safety of Riley’s North Carolina Courage players.
NWSL’s senior management of talent and administration, Aries Pickett, replied from the HR email account stating the league took Farrelly’s email seriously. Pickett had also copied the NWSL’s general counsel, Lisa Levine, into the email thread. Pickett’s reply said the league would investigate and provide next steps. Farrelly then got another reply, stating that Baird would reach out directly.
Baird’s email to Farrelly on May 5 covered much of the same ground as her previous exchange with Shim: the Portland files were reviewed, the investigation had been completed and she could not share any details. Once again she touted the new policy. “Thank you again for your email and I wish you the best,” Baird signed.
Farrelly and Shim were practically shouting at the league to do something, to open a new investigation into Riley, to dig into his alleged behavior, even knowing they’d have to relive what happened. And that is what the league — women’s soccer — has always lacked: transparency. League and team officials who ask not for silence, but who care about the game and its future as much as the players, and thus are willing to face the consequences no matter what the sunlight brings.
“There’s this term,” Farrelly said, “it’s called institutional betrayal, and I learned it because of this.”
Katie Strang also contributed to this story.
To follow the reactions to this investigation, please click here.
(Top photos: Carolyn Fong)
Related searches to Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married
Information related to the topic Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married
Here are the search results of the thread Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married from Bing. You can read more if you want.
You have just come across an article on the topic Sinead Farrelly Husband Or Partner Is Paul Riley Accuser Married. If you found this article useful, please share it. Thank you very much.
Articles compiled by Bangkokbikethailandchallenge.com. See more articles in category: DIGITAL MARKETING