By the time hundreds of professional women’s soccer players gathered on a videoconference Thursday night, they had all had enough.
One head coach in their league had been fired that morning, accused of coercing a player on his team into sex and of bullying others. His dismissal came two days after the coach of another team was fired for what one player described as threats and personal insults. Many of the women on the call, arranged by the union for athletes in the National Women’s Soccer League, had their own painful stories to share.
For two hours they discussed what to do next, and their decision came close to midnight: The players’ union would ask the league to cancel the five games scheduled for this weekend so that the athletes could have “space to process this pain,” the union said in a statement.