This writer has been hugely critical of Vera Pauw over the past couple of years in relation to her treatment of Tyler Toland, the young Donegal player who hasn’t kicked a ball for her country since the Dutch woman took over as Republic of Ireland manager in 2019.
So, when Pauw’s name appeared in the report on the investigation by the United States’ National Women’s Soccer League in to “widespread misconduct directed at NWSL players” – bizarrely released in the middle of Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final –, eyes widened.
Come the end of the 125-page report, which makes for the grimmest of reading, it was, to be honest, hard to avoid this conclusion: it was scandalous that Pauw’s name was inserted alongside coaches, some of them sexual predators, whose behaviour towards their players was, quite literally, criminal.
Her chief crime? To take a controlling role in her players’ dietary and fitness regimes.
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Abuse is abuse, whether physical or emotional, it shouldn’t be graded, and those Houston Dash players who complained about Pauw’s treatment of them during her year in charge of the club in 2018 most certainly deserve to be heard.
And if that treatment had a damaging impact on them, then Pauw might need to re-evaluate how she deals with players as people, rather than just footballers at her disposal.
Having talked before to folk familiar with her time in Houston, as well as a reporter who covered her spell as manager of South Africa, that’s a common enough theme – she’s a fine coach, but she’s lacking in the ‘people skills’ department.
But does wanting to “control and micromanage players’ diets and exercise regimens”, as the report alleged, really fall into the category of “misconduct”? Or is it just a coach wanting to get her squad in to the best shape possible, as she would define it, for the campaign ahead?
Pauw studied Physical Education in university, while pursuing a lengthy playing career, so while her views on the best way a player can get into shape might be disputed, as the report suggested, she’s hardly unqualified to have an opinion.
The report accuses her, based on complaints from some of her Houston players, of “shaming” members of her squad over their weight. “Bulky,” it said she called them, a term she denied using to them.
But ‘bulky’, or words to that effect, has often been her way of describing players she believes do too much gym work, and ‘bulk up’ as a result. That, she is convinced, results in a greater chance of them ending up with serious injuries, worst of all anterior cruciate ligament damage.
Again, experts might dispute her theory, and it is one Manchester City, Toland’s club when she and Pauw first fell out, disagreed with when she questioned the fitness regime City had Toland on, the club insisting that she was in perfect condition.
Pauw’s advice to Toland about her physical condition resulted in the player’s father, Maurice, being worried about her “physical and mental wellbeing”. He became particularly alarmed when his daughter lost a stone in weight “in a short space of time”.
When his comments appeared in The Irish Times, we were sent a statement by a former Houston Dash player who had read them, a player who appears to have featured in the NWSL investigation.
In the statement, she said she related to Toland’s experience and she went on to partly blame Pauw for her struggles with mental health issues and eating disorders.
We chose not to publish her statement because it simply did not contain any evidence to show that Pauw was responsible for those struggles, desperately sad as they were.
The player in question talked about the impact on her of Pauw dropping her from the Houston Dash team, and how, when she challenged Pauw on the matter, she was told her “stature was bulky”, she was “not as fast as the leaner players”.
“Due to some of these events, as well as some various contributing factors, I battled with mental health and am still in recovery ... I personally feel that it is a coach’s job to uplift and encourage young players, particularly female athletes. In this regard, Vera has not displayed appropriate behaviours or actions as a head coach or manager of a team.”
Again, gut-wrenching to read of a young woman going through such a torrid time, and this player has really been through it. But the “various contributing factors” was key here. There were evidently other issues in her life.
Cold as it might seem, Pauw had a job to do at Houston, this was her first professional role with a club side, her success or failure would impact the rest of her coaching career. It was her right to drop a player if she thought she had better options available, that the player in question took that decision so personally simply cannot be laid at Pauw’s feet.
No such context was given to this player’s complaint in the report.
Erik ten Hag was widely hailed for dropping Cristiano Ronaldo, it was a display of his “authority”. There are major double standards at play here: when a female coach makes similarly tough choices, she’s a demon.
But again, Pauw demonstrated that those people skills need working on.
According to the report, Pauw “acknowledged that a [Houston] player had raised concerns to Pauw that Pauw’s mistreatment had caused a team-mate’s eating disorder, but Pauw denied any role and stated that the reporting player should have ‘tak[en] responsibility as an adult’ by looking out for her teammate sooner”.
That’s not great, a manager’s first duty, no doubt, is to produce a winning team, but there’s no harm in showing some concern for a player’s welfare. But can she be blamed for an already vulnerable player’s reaction to being dropped? No.
There’s a lot of the “old school” about Pauw, a “power freak”, as she was described in the report, wanting to take control of most aspects of her players’ lives. There was a time that was fine, admired, even, but not so much these days.
She should, then, probably have a think, remind herself that her players are like any regular human beings, stuffed with vulnerabilities that need tending to.
But to lump her in with sexual predators and the very worst of humanity? No. Scandalous.
