Last month, the U.S. Women’s National Team joined more than 100 members of the U.S. Soccer Federation Athletes’ Council to call on Congress to pass legislation to reform the U.S. Center for SafeSport. As CEO of U.S. Youth Soccer, the largest youth sport organization in America with our headquarters in Frisco, I echo this call to action.
We have seen first-hand how SafeSport, which was established by Congress to protect athletes of all ages from sexual misconduct and other forms of abuse in soccer and across sport, is failing our children and their heroes who play at the elite level.
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On Oct. 22, 2022, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates concluded a yearlong investigation into allegations of abusive behavior and sexual misconduct in women’s professional soccer. Her findings were heartbreaking. No one should have to endure the sort of mistreatment that was described in Yates’ report. Most troubling was her conclusion that the abuse in our sport is rooted in youth soccer.
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As the leader of an organization with over 2.4 million registered players annually, 20,000+ teams, nearly 1 million administrators, coaches, referees and countless volunteers, I have an obligation to every child who plays soccer to do everything I can to provide them with a safe playing environment.
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To do this, we need to be able to count on SafeSport to effectively carry out its mission. Unfortunately, SafeSport doesn’t have the tools it needs to effectively do its job. The situation is so dire that Yates stated that leaders in soccer “can’t rely exclusively on SafeSport to keep players safe and should implement safety measures where necessary to protect players”.
That statement should be a wake-up call to everyone in our sport and to every member of Congress. SafeSport should be central to our efforts to keep athletes of all ages safe. The fact that we are being told we can’t rely on this important organization to effectively carry out investigations into allegations of abuse is startling. While organizations like USYS can take certain limited actions to protect players, the reality is that our ability to address allegations of sexual misconduct and other forms of abuse in our sport are limited by current law, which gives SafeSport exclusive jurisdiction over these allegations.
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SafeSport was established by an act of Congress in response to the abuse scandal that rocked USA Gymnastics. Although Congress passed reform legislation only two years later, even those members of Congress who led this effort admit that more needs to be done. This is why I am calling on Congress to take up legislation to make important changes to the system to ensure that allegations of abuse are taken seriously and that bad actors are actually held accountable for their actions.
I recently sent a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over SafeSport, and which counts Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as one of its leaders. In my letter, which I sent on behalf of USYS and its 54 member state associations, I made a number of recommendations that were also included in the athlete council letter and which the U.S. Soccer Federation has been lobbying for since the Yates report was issued.
Those recommendations include increasing transparency and information sharing by SafeSport; limiting the number of SafeSport investigations that end in administrative closure, without any decision on the merits; ensuring that U.S. Soccer and other national governing bodies for other sports can take action when SafeSport does not; and ensuring the appeals process works for claimants and respondents alike.
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If you have a child that plays youth sports, or if you care about someone that does, I encourage you to join me in this call to action. This issue is too important, and it affects too many people, for us to sit on the sidelines.
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Skip Gilbert is the chief executive officer of U.S. Youth Soccer. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.
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We need stronger measures to protect children from sexual misconduct in sports
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