Daily News | Joanna Lohman ‘was fooled by Paul Riley’ in Philadelphia, where he allegedly coerced her teammates
Farrelly told the Yates investigation that Riley’s alleged coercion of her started in 2011, her rookie season with the Independence. She also told the investigation that she first decided to report Riley’s alleged conduct toward her with the Independence and Portland Thorns in 2015, when the Thorns began their own investigation during her second year in Portland. Farrelly said she “was so scared” of speaking up because it “would hurt my career, my reputation, my standing with these people.
Farrelly also said in the letter that “no one from either the team or the NWSL ever independently investigated my allegations that I raised in the 2015 investigation, despite their serious nature.”U.S. Soccer promises action after Yates investigation details abuse and sexual coercion in NWSL But in Women’s Professional Soccer, a league that collapsed after only three seasons of play , there were no formal ways to report improper behavior.
“Where the players are supposed to have space to relax in between double [practice] days, bond with one another,” Lohman said. “There was no piece of his organization that he didn’t have his hands all over, and that’s purposeful. You would never see that in, I would say, a men’s sport.”