The Dash have suspended coach and general manager James Clarkson, who is being investigated by the NWSL and its players association.
The suspension came “in light of initial findings received this week,” the Dash said.
The team opens its regular season Sunday and will name an interim coach during the investigation.
“As an organization, our highest priority is creating and maintaining a safe and respectful work environment for our players and staff, which we believe is critical to our success on the pitch,” the team said in its statement. “The Club has made counseling services available to all members of the organization interested.”
The investigation is part of a recent initiative by the women’s soccer league to review current and historic complaints of discrimination, harassment and abuse.
Last year, several NWSL managers were fired for verbal abuse, including former OL Reign manager Farid Benstiti and former Washington Spirit manager Richie Burke. Former North Carolina Courage manager Paul Riley was fired for allegedly engaging in the sexual coercion of players during his time as manager of the Portland Thorns.
When it was revealed that the various NWSL stakeholders were aware of the circumstances under which Riley was fired by the Thorns in 2015, NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird resigned.
The league and the union agreed that league personnel would voluntarily take part in the union’s investigation of sexual misconduct, and that there be total transparency by the league in terms of other ongoing investigations.
Clarkson has been head coach since 2018, and with the team since it was founded, along with the NWSL, in 2014. The new NWSL Commissioner says this is a good sign that the new process is working.
New National Women’s Soccer League Commissioner Jessica Berman said Wednesday that while it’s disappointing another league coach has been accused of misconduct, programs that were implemented in the wake of last season’s league scandals have helped make sure players’ concerns are addressed.
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“This is the manifestation of the process that the league and the players’ association put in place which provided a pathway for individuals to bring forward issues and for those issues to be investigated and managed appropriately,” Berman said. “And so while we never like to have situations like this happen, the fact that the process worked the way it was intended to, and that all of the appropriate parties worked together on the interim solution and the next steps was really important and constructive overall for the progress that the league is making on this issue.”
Berman, who began her job April 20, said she could not address the specifics of the investigation because it is ongoing.
Clarkson is the longest-tenured coach in the NWSL. He was the only head coach still with his team who was coach at the start of last NWSL season. All the others have either voluntarily left the league for new opportunities, gone to other teams within the league, resigned or were dismissed because of alleged misconduct.
I guess you could call it a good sign, but it sure is a bad look overall. Though to be fair, it’s not just the NWSL.
The University of Florida announced it fired women’s soccer coach Tony Amato after just one season with the program. The move comes after players complained about how Amato treated them and a large number chose to transfer from the program.
“We have worked diligently with Tony since last fall when I first became aware of challenges with relationship building and communication,” athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a statement. “As the issues continued to be brought to my attention, it became apparent that sufficient progress was not being made and Tony was not a fit for the University of Florida.”
Florida hired Amato away from Arizona last year, after the coach spent eight years with the Wildcats. In total, Amato has been a head coach in each of the last 19 seasons for four different schools.
The Gators went 4-12-4 in their first year under Amato. However, according to Payton Titus of WUFT, players had complained that Amato “pressured them about eating habits and their bodies” last year. Amato was reportedly strict over what the players ate, to the point that some players said they had developed eating disorders as a result.
There’s a range of behaviors here, and we don’t know what James Clarkson is alleged to have done. There may not be anything in common between his actions and those of Tony Amato, but I think we can agree that Amato’s behavior falls into the bucket of things that can be called abusive, and that’s the larger issue with the NWSL. As I said, it’s a bad look, wherever it’s happening. I hope that league really has taken a substantive step towards fixing it.
Major League Soccer (both men’s and women’s teams) has been doomed in Houston for at least a decade as not a single ownership group or coaching staff has been successful in placing a winning team on the field. Every time one of those two entities change, local fans reignite their collective passion(s) and are convinced the new/next group is gonna do it right and bring back a 0.500+ team to BBVA/PNC.
Alas, though, it doesn’t happen.
My daughter follows the NWSL (and women’s soccer in general) very closely, and her take is that a lot of chickens are finally coming home to roost; and while it’s far from ideal, at least it’s being addressed. Cleaning house is not pretty, but it’s necessary.
We watched a lot of soccer during COVID, and I have to say it feels like the NWSL is on the upswing right now. I heard from the aforementioned daughter (though I have not done any research to verify it) that while most “major” sports viewership declined during the pandemic, women’s sports actually increased. I know it did in our household – the whole family was riveted to the NCAA volleyball tournament.