Cordiero said USSF employees can use the existing reporting hotline while the new system is being set upGETTY IMAGES
The U.S. Soccer Federation said that it will "create an anonymous, third-party reporting system to field complaints from employees after more than a dozen current and former staff members castigated the federation for allowing what they said was a 'toxic' workplace environment" at the organization's Chicago HQ, according to Andrew Das of the N.Y. TIMES. USSF President Carlos Cordeiro in a letter to employees yesterday wrote, "You have a voice and we want to hear it." Cordeiro added that details of the new system "would be explained 'in the days ahead.'" In the meantime, he said that employees "could take advantage of an existing reporting hotline" handled by the USSF's legal department. That system "accepts anonymous complaints." Current and former federation employees described the online reviews as a "campaign to alert leaders like Cordeiro and federation board members to a troubled workplace culture in which employees’ comings and goings were monitored" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/27).
OLIVE BRANCHES: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Rachel Bachman notes from the day the USWNT players’ lawsuit against the USSF was filed in March, team members "made repeated personal appeals" to Cordeiro in an attempt to "resolve it." The correspondence "shows a tense back-and-forth" between players and their employer. though Cordeiro and the players "never met." In the two months leading up to the Women's World Cup, he "cited scheduling conflicts" and said that he "wouldn’t meet with the players without the federation’s lawyers." The players "declined his request to meet with all 28 players involved in the lawsuit," saying that "meeting with a small group of players chosen as representatives would be less distracting." On March 8, the day of the lawsuit, a "few players leading the equal-pay fight sent a text message to Cordeiro" saying that they "wanted to talk to him." A source said that the players’ aim was to "make sure he knew the lawsuit wasn’t personal." Many of them had "supported his candidacy in the federation’s close presidential election" in '18 (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/27).
