After a thrilling pair of playoff games last week that yielded two underdog finalists, the NWSL will crown a champion Saturday between the Washington Spirit and the Chicago Red Stars, and it will cap off the most difficult season in the young league’s existence.
Little more than a month ago, the National Women’s Soccer League was going through a so-called reckoning during which the league simply stopped. The backlash and emotional toll over abuse from coaches — and the systemic failures that allowed such behavior to go unchecked — prompted the players to cancel a weekend of games. But ultimately, the soccer had to resume — to get the NWSL back on track, the games had to continue.
After a season in which the NWSL earned too little attention for its spectacular on-field product and more attention for problems that supporters had long tried to brush aside to protect the league, Saturday’s championship is a chance to remind everyone why the NWSL is worth saving through facing its problems and fixing them.
Consider the season-long story of the Spirit. Off the field, the club at the highest levels has been a dysfunctional mess. Coach Richie Burke was accused of abusive and racist remarks toward players and when club owner Steve Baldwin caught wind that journalists were looking into it, he claimed Burke had health problems and gave him a front office job instead of firing him, which prompted the NWSL to step in and ban him.
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Meanwhile, an ugly power struggle played out between Baldwin, the majority owner, and Y. Michele Kang, a minority owner. The players joined the fracas, demanding that Baldwin sell the team to Kang, which has yet to yield the desired result. At another point, amid COVID-19 protocol violations, so many Washington players tested positive — a handful of them reportedly unvaccinated — that the club was forced to…
Source : espn
