SENIOR FAI FIGURES last night issued a strong defence of Vera Pauw following allegations of misconduct made against her in a report published on Wednesday.
The report, compiled jointly by America’s National Women’s Soccer League and its players’ union, investigated historic allegations of the mistreatment of players across many clubs in the league.
The report alleges Pauw made comments regarding players’ weight and attempted to influence their eating habits during her time as manager of Houston Dash in 2018.
The report states that Pauw appeared for an interview but did not co-operate with the Joint Investigative Team compiling the report. Pauw provided a written denial of all of the allegations made against her, stating she has never remarked on a player’s appearance.
The FAI issued a statement in support of Pauw prior to last night’s reconvened Annual General Meeting, which was subsequently abandoned due to technical issues.
Speaking at a press conference after the abandoned meeting, FAI Chairperson Roy Barrett said the framing of the allegations against Pauw were unfair.
I am not an apologist for any of the behaviour in that report, many of the aspects are pretty shocking. But if we judge Vera since she has been at the FAI, she has been a fantastic ambassador, there is no sense of any of these behaviours and there is a clear sense she would not tolerate it. That is what I believe is unfair: you have this report where allegations are made by relatively anonymous people and Vera just denies them. Yet we are having a conversation about whether she is innocent or guilty, and I think that’s unfair.
“I am only reflecting what I have read in the report. The reality is that Vera has denied the allegations and the report does not make any comment one way or the other. They just state the allegations from anonymous people. Vera has refuted them, and they move on. I note that in the case of other people implicated in that report, they take a firmer view.”
When a follow-up question stated the anonymity of the report’s interviewees is a consequence of the nature of the allegations, Barrett replied, “I don’t dispute that. But all I am saying is that Vera denies it and I have no reason to disbelieve that.”
The FAI stated they were not aware of these allegations when they hired Pauw as women’s national team manager in 2019. Asked whether the FAI have conducted due dilligence to ensure the issues raised by the allegations have not been encountered by Irish players working under Pauw, CEO Jonathan Hill replied, “Correct, yes. We discussed that tonight at board, and there have been no similar discussion at all.”
He also confirmed there is a mechanism by which Irish players can raise any issues with the FAI.
“We have a variety of routes to do that. If they are specific medical, we have the team leads, including the doctor.
“It is also made clear through the induction there is access to our HR.
“On a wider basis in Ireland, we have our child, welfare safeguarding division to whom anybody who has an issue about their treatment can anonymously talk in confidence.
“They [members of the Irish senior squad] should be aware through the induction. We discussed it with the board so this is a good opportunity to review our processes for all teams including underage and everybody involved in football. That’s a positive thing to do given everything that has happened in the last 24 hours.”
Asked whether the FAI consider the matter closed, Hill replied, “As it stands, yes. Vera has strong views on this. Doubtless you’ll hear from Vera on this.”
Pauw is scheduled to give a press conference later today.
