Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, More: US Soccer ‘Stood By’ amid Rory Dames Allegations

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A number of USWNT players, including Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn, wrote a letter to the U.S. Soccer Federation on Wednesday accusing the organizing body of failing to protect its female players, per Molly Hensley-Clancy of the Washington Post.

“U.S. Soccer had the obligation to protect its players—yet it stood by as abuse continued to occur unchecked,” the players wrote in the letter to federation president Cindy Parlow Cone and former president Carlos Cordeiro.

They added that the federation “failed to do the bare minimum—to keep us and the young girls who play in the youth leagues safe.”

“Over the years, while we played on the USWNT and in the National Women’s Soccer League, many of us reported to USSF instances where, as adults, we experienced abusive conduct by our coaches,” the letter continued. “Now we have learned that this abusive treatment also was repeatedly reported by minors and that USSF failed to respond to protect these young players. That is utterly disheartening.”

The letter comes in the wake of Hensley-Clancy reporting Tuesday that former players of coach Rory Dames—who resigned in November right before allegations of emotional abuse surfaced against him, one of a number of NSWL coaches to resign or be fired amid similar accusations—had raised concerns about him with police as far back as 1998.

Per that report, one woman said Dames “cultivated an inappropriate relationship with her from age 14—conduct she now sees as ‘grooming.’ Once she turned 18, the woman said, he used his power over her soccer career, and the control he had long exerted in her life, to have sex with her as she was still playing for him at Eclipse in the early 2000s.”

In a 1998 police report, one girl said he “touched her inappropriately on her upper thigh,” another girl said he pinched her when she refused to massage him and a boy said Dames punched him in the stomach.

And Megan Cnota told the Washington Post that she told police Dames made “degrading sexual jokes” about her. Other players reportedly made similar complaints to police.

The authorities, however, dropped the investigation after Dames’ accusers didn’t file formal complaints and prosecutors didn’t further pursue the case.

Dames kept his job, and per Hensley-Clancy, 14 of his former youth players said he was “verbally and emotionally abusive toward them as teenagers, for many in ways that they say left lasting psychological damage.”

USWNT forward Christen Press told the Washington Post last year that she raised concerns about Dames to U.S. Soccer on two separate occasions. The federation reportedly investigated Dames but didn’t take any action against him.

He also didn’t have his coaching license suspended by U.S. Soccer when the allegations of emotional and verbal abuse were first levied against him in November. Instead, the federation only took that action after the Washington Post questioned it about the accusations.

“USSF should have immediately removed coaching licenses from abusers,” the players wrote. “Instead, USSF allowed those individuals to coach while saying it would investigate.”