World Cup turns spotlight on abuse in women’s game

AP:

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 football 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.

‘HIGH HUMAN COST’

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”.

Football’s global governing body is paying attention.

FIFA rolled out a safeguarding programme at the under-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica last summer aimed at keeping participants and fans safe from abuse, exploitation, and harassment. Games were staffed by a safeguarding official, and all participants were briefed about abuse and how to report it.

FIFA will do much the same at the Women’s World Cup that starts next week. Among the programmes for players, teams, and other stakeholders are pre-tournament educational presentations. Every participating nation must designate a player welfare official, required to complete a safeguarding course. FIFA is also unveiling a training and shadow programme to develop competition safeguarding officers.

There will also be confidential ways around the clock to report abuse with what FIFA says is a “victim-centred approach”.

During the tournament, FIFA will also implement an initiative designed to protect players from abuse on social media, developed along with FIFPRO.

First used at the men’s World Cup in Qatar, the service uses artificial intelligence to identify problematic posts, which are then reported. Players and teams also have access to moderation software to hide posts that are abusive, discriminatory, or threatening.

Farrelly, who has dual citizenship, last played in the NWSL in 2015 before signing for Gotham FC in March. An accident forced her retirement from football in 2016. But the emotional weight of the abuse – which Farrelly said stretched back to 2011 – needed time to heal, too.

Now she’s got a second chance.

“I just don’t want to go on there and fail and make mistakes – that’s just how my brain works. And so I’m really trying to take people’s support and not twist it into pressure. Just be really grateful that it’s a cool experience,” she said.

“I play my best when I’m having fun, and so I just need to bring it back to that every time.”