The Next Frontier of Athlete Wellbeing in Women's Soccer
What do you focus on after rooting out abuse and harassment?
Earlier this month, the NWSL Players Association and the Attorneys General of New York, Illinois, and DC announced that they had reached a settlement with the NWSL over the abuse and harassment scandals that rocked the league in 2021 and 2022. The landmark agreement “establishes a $5 million Player Restitution Fund to provide monetary relief to impacted players” and allows these AG offices to oversee the continued implementation of recommendations that came out of two separate investigative reports, one by former US Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and the other by a Joint Investigative Team between the league and the players association.
As the settlement helps close a dark chapter in our sport’s history, women’s soccer leagues and clubs are faced with a new question: once you’ve established an environment free of abuse and harassment, what should you focus on when it comes to improving the player experience?
Back in 2021, Saara Hassoun and I set out to answer this question while advising a group of investors looking to get into the women’s game. That journey eventually led us to join the Harvard Global Sports Initiative, where we wrote a research paper on this exact subject. Through in-depth interviews with 24 pro women’s soccer players with experience across more than a dozen countries and leagues, we found, unsurprisingly, that strategies focused solely on preventing misconduct are not enough; in order to create supportive and healthy environments for their players, teams must invest in holistic approaches to athlete wellbeing.
For example, at the virtual press conference announcing the settlement, former Racing Louisville player Erin Simon expressed that she was “especially grateful that [the agreement] includes increased mental health support for the players.” So, for this issue of Seeing the Present, I’m sharing the subsection of our paper focused on mental health below. Other topics we explore include compensation, medical care, and maternity support; if you’re interested in reading further, the full paper is available here.
4.6 Mental Health
Lack of Support: Many participants reported experiencing mental health concerns or knowing a teammate who did, but very few reported that their team had adequate mental health support. In an elite performance environment, athletes unsurprisingly reported experiencing enormous pressure, yet most participants indicated that they wouldn’t bring their mental health concerns to their club due to the perceived lack of support and the worry that doing so might negatively impact their standing with the coaching staff. Players in foreign leagues where they did not speak the language expressed compounding issues of increased mental strain and decreased confidence in asking for or accessing support:
“[It] was an incredibly dark period of my career and my life mentally… I didn’t feel as though I could speak about my mental health because of two main reasons. The first is the language barrier. Like, it was difficult to speak to someone that didn't fully understand all the words I was using to express my feelings. And the second bit is that it’s a professional setting and that it could be used against me.” (Player #2)
All players interviewed suggested that access to team-provided mental health support through a sports psychologist, therapist, or other mental health professional would be immensely helpful, as “the mental part of the game is just as important, if not more important, than the physical part” (Player #11). However, participants noted that it would be critical that this mental health professional have a degree of independence from the coaching staff to feel comfortable being candid. Ideally, players would have the opportunity to choose between team-provided mental health professionals and team-subsidized external mental health support, so they could find the option that best fits their needs.
Coaching Staff: Several participants mentioned they would feel uncomfortable discussing their mental health with the coaching staff. Beyond the fear that such conversations could be used against them, resulting in decreased playing time or even contract termination, in many instances it’s the coaching staff themselves that are the source of mental health concerns due to behavior such as weight shaming. According to our participants, coaches can contribute to a significantly better player-centric environment by receiving education on player mental health and wellbeing, creating clear and honest expectations and lines of communication around mental health support, and instituting intentional, periodic check-ins with the team to demonstrate a commitment and openness to discussing non-physical factors impacting players on and off the pitch. Furthermore, conceptualizing processes like returning from injury as both physical and mental ordeals makes coaches better equipped to help players through them. In addition to enhancing athlete wellbeing, robust mental health support would also improve the players’ ability to perform at the highest level.
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