Ex-players in FAI scandal speak out: Our pain will be gain for the next generation

The product of a two-year investigation was aired on "RTÉ Investigates," shedding light on the alleged behavior of two coaches in the 1990s, as well as former female players affected.

Former trainees in a FÁS course [Ireland's training and employment agency at the time] told the program their head coach made sexual advances on five out of 20 young women in their year. The FAI will address the damning allegations of sexual abuse this morning as the latest scandal continues to rock the sporting organization.

Meanwhile, a group set up to represent the women affected has expressed hope their pain will be "the next generation’s gain."

"It’s hard to express in words the feelings that have defined our lives over the last 25 years or so," the Sportswomen Against Abuse stated.

"For this whole time, we buried our emotions and thought we were the only ones. We blamed ourselves and hid our shame from our family and friends.

"It’s only in the last two years that our eyes have been opened to what is systematic and calculated abuse inflicted on all of us and in different ways.

"But we have emerged stronger together, united and determined to ensure this never happens to anyone else again. Our pain will be the next generation’s gain."

TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill told RTÉ’s Radio 1: "The revelations of this investigation are yet another example of the things women have had to put up with in different ways, particularly women in vulnerable positions or people in authority.

"Women up and down Ireland are sick and tired of it, historically and in a current way. It just has to stop."

One alleged victim said she had an unwanted sexual encounter with a coach after he asked her to stay behind in a changing room, while a number of others said they have been left with mental scars from their encounters. In addition, six former internationals made allegations of inappropriate behavior against a coach. He is accused of making sexual advances on some of the players while others said he created a homophobic environment in the camp.

Ireland’s first Black women’s player, Jackie McCarthy-O’Brien, claimed she was not selected on the squad again after she fled the man’s hotel when the coach allegedly kissed her. Both former coaches are the subject of a Garda investigation, but they deny all wrongdoing.

With the Girls In Green headed to the World Cup, here are Jackie McCarthy-O'Brien, the first Woman of Colour to play for Ireland, and her daughter Sam, also an Irish international. They are the only mother & daughter to both be capped for the Republic pic.twitter.com/9GehCEhMrQ

— Michael Daly (@MichaelDaly64) July 17, 2023

Lynn Winters, a member of the FÁS course when she was a teenager, said the coach got too familiar with the young women. "It was like, 'I’m the coach on the Monday, tonight I’m your friend…'" she said.

"My feeling was, if I don’t go along with this, if I don’t go into the city center to meet him, if I don’t go drinking, if I don’t meet him in the car, he’s not going to have me as captain anymore. It’s just like the hold he had over you — and that he could take it from you in the blink of an eye. He had final say at the end of day."

She said he pressured her to go on dates with him.

"I never allowed myself to be in a situation where he had full control of me," she said.

"There was lots of inappropriate touch. It’s just control. Sometimes I think he still has it.

"He would put his hand down my shorts or touch my breasts or in passing, making a joke out of it. I touched his penis and kissed him and I... Yeah, that was it."

Asked if she wanted to do those things, Ms Winters replied: "God, no – I was gay. I wasn’t that strong... I never did say ‘No’, as in I allowed him to touch me. I never not touched him. I suppose now, looking back, it’s like he’s my manager.

"Will he not have me being a captain? Will I not get my game if I say no? So, I just went with it."

Bridget McDonald, another former member FÁS course member, ended up in her coach’s apartment after they kissed at a pub. She remembers having sexual intercourse with him, but added: "I’d never been with a man, I’m gay and I hadn’t really got a clue. I was real naïve. I’ve always had low self-esteem, no confidence, I hated myself... And soccer was the only thing that I was good at. After that it just destroyed me. It just ruined everything."

Trisha Bourke, another team member, said the same man wrote on her 21st birthday card “Shame you didn’t score today, but I’m sure you will tonight."

"He’d often ask questions about boyfriends and stuff like that. And did I get sex when I went home the weekends, and whatever? I’d just laugh it off and tell him like, you know, maybe I did, maybe I didn’t."

FAI interim CEO David Courell and People & Culture director Aoife Rafferty are due to address allegations of abuse at a media briefing this morning. Sportswomen Against Abuse said they will do whatever it takes to ensure no other member of the FAI suffers similar abuse.

* This article was originally published on Evoke.ie.