Women 'sick and tired' of suffering abuse, minister says following shocking FAI allegations
Former international female soccer players and trainees have claimed they were subjected to unwanted or inappropriate sexual advances and behaviour from a number of FAI coaches
Women are “sick and tired” of suffering abuse, Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said.
It comes after a series of shocking allegations about the alleged treatment of top female soccer players. The Minister of State for EU Affairs hit out after former international players and trainees claimed they were subjected to unwanted or inappropriate sexual advances and behaviour from a number of FAI coaches.
She said: “The revelations in this investigation are yet another example of the things that women have had to put up with in different ways, particularly women in vulnerable positions, or, you know, with people in authority.
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“And I think women up and down Ireland are absolutely sick and tired of it both historically and in a current way. And it just has to stop.”
International players from the 1990s accused their manager at the time, Mick Cooke, of inappropriate behaviour, according to a joint probe by the Sunday Independent and RTE Investigates.
Mr Cooke was recently issued a “stand down” order by the FAI which he is challenging. This order is made for the immediate protection and safeguarding of children and vulnerable persons and is not a determination of wrongdoing by any individual.
Jackie McCarthy-O’Brien claims she was dropped after resisting an alleged unwanted advance in the manager’s hotel room.
Former player Olivia O’Toole, Ireland’s record goal-scorer, claimed she was “exiled” from the team for two years in 1998 after she allegedly witnessed Cooke’s inappropriate behaviour with players.
She said: “When I speak about it I get upset. I get upset because, what I seen, it ruined my career. Apparently, I was the best player in Ireland at the time and I had been dropped from a 23 squad because of what I’d seen.”
Olivia was recalled to the team in 2000 following Cooke’s departure. The former manager has denied all the allegations.
The investigation also reported claims that five out of 20 women from Ireland’s first state-funded all-women soccer course were subject to advances by their head coach, Eamonn Collins.
In 1996, a first-of-its-kind FAS course paid unemployed 16 to 25-year-olds IR£100 a week to obtain a coaching qualification and other training certs.
Collins is now a football agent, and told the media investigation he “emphatically and unreservedly denies any improper relationship or conduct by him while he was involved as a coach on a football training course in west Co Dublin that commenced in 1996”. He also received a “stand down” order from the FAI in March.
In a statement issued through the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland, the women said they hope that what they allegedly experienced “should provide for lessons for the future”. It added: “Our pain will be the next generation’s gain.”
The FAI said: “The Association was shocked and appalled to learn of disturbing allegations of abuse brought forward by women involved in Irish football in the 1990s.”
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