During the Olympics in Rio, surprising to many, no one contracted diseases last seen in the Oregon Trail. Also surprisingly, the U.S. Woman's Soccer Team was upset in the quarterfinals by Sweden, who after tying, smartly played defense to force the game into penalty kicks. After the game, American goalkeeper Hope Solo criticized this as an act of "a bunch of cowards."
Hope Solo, while being an excellent goalkeeper, is terrible at PR. This was not well received by the US Soccer Federation, her teammates, the Swedes, and the sports community. Yesterday, the USSF announced her contract would be terminated and she would be suspended for 6 months, meaning she could be resigned, but not until February 2017 (1).
Which at first glance, sounds pretty severe, especially given her crime was trash talking. As of right now, the US Woman's National Team has two games, friendlies on September 15 and September 18, on the schedule for that time. The 6 months after the Olympics are a light point in a tournament calendar that will next feature the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympics. Two games for trash talking, while on the heavy side, seems much more reasonable (2).
Except soccer scheduling is weird. Outside continental federation and FIFA tournaments, most matches are friendlies, which are often scheduled only a few months (or even a single month) in advanced. So we don't know what next number of games Solo might be missing. However, there were two post-Olympic six month periods periods post Olympics with records on Wikipedia, August 2012-February 2013, and August 2008-February 2009, which featured 12 and 8 matches, respectively. So one would expect that around 10 matches to occur in that period, although none would be major tournaments. Missing Solo may have a silver lining; it allows the USWNT to give other, younger, goalkeepers real game experience (for a number of games that will be as few as 2, but probably around 10) in case Solo, 35, may not be open to playing in future tournaments or is injured. The USWNT could chose to do a lighter set of games then in the past, either in number or opponent strength, to prevent Solo's suspension from hurting the team's record.
Hope Solo, while being an excellent goalkeeper, is terrible at PR. This was not well received by the US Soccer Federation, her teammates, the Swedes, and the sports community. Yesterday, the USSF announced her contract would be terminated and she would be suspended for 6 months, meaning she could be resigned, but not until February 2017 (1).
Which at first glance, sounds pretty severe, especially given her crime was trash talking. As of right now, the US Woman's National Team has two games, friendlies on September 15 and September 18, on the schedule for that time. The 6 months after the Olympics are a light point in a tournament calendar that will next feature the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympics. Two games for trash talking, while on the heavy side, seems much more reasonable (2).
Except soccer scheduling is weird. Outside continental federation and FIFA tournaments, most matches are friendlies, which are often scheduled only a few months (or even a single month) in advanced. So we don't know what next number of games Solo might be missing. However, there were two post-Olympic six month periods periods post Olympics with records on Wikipedia, August 2012-February 2013, and August 2008-February 2009, which featured 12 and 8 matches, respectively. So one would expect that around 10 matches to occur in that period, although none would be major tournaments. Missing Solo may have a silver lining; it allows the USWNT to give other, younger, goalkeepers real game experience (for a number of games that will be as few as 2, but probably around 10) in case Solo, 35, may not be open to playing in future tournaments or is injured. The USWNT could chose to do a lighter set of games then in the past, either in number or opponent strength, to prevent Solo's suspension from hurting the team's record.
Ten games for trash talk sounds severe, especially considering that, with an average of 22 games from 2009-2016, it would be equivalent to 7 game NFL suspension. But is isn't only for trash talking. The USSF states in their press release “Taking into consideration the past incidents involving Hope, as well as the private conversations we’ve had requiring her to conduct herself in a manner befitting a U.S. National Team member, U.S. Soccer determined this is the appropriate disciplinary action.” (3). Those past incidents include criticizing a USWNT coach in 2005, a domestic violence incident in 2014 for which she received no discipline (current NFL policy would mandate a 6-8 game suspension, although that policy is not always follow given Josh Brown's recent 1 game suspension), a 2015 incident involving both her husband operating a USSF-owned vehicle while intoxicated (she received a 30-day suspension, missing 2 games, equivalent to a 1 game NFL suspension) (1). So if the current suspension is considered a belated suspension for those past incidents, the suspension length seems more appropriate, consider the recent precedent of NFL and MLB suspensions for similar offenses for the past incidents of Solo.
In my personal opinion, giving Solo a suspension that is meant to punish a body of work is a bad policy. There should be clear lengths (given in games, not calendar time) for specific offenses that are applied at the time of the offense to provide clear discipline for acts that are not becoming of a national team member, and deter similar acts by players in the future. This is in theory what the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA have in policies for player conduct, although the leagues have shown flexibility in terms of how they apply their discipline policy, either due to union pressure or undisclosed reasons.
In short, the USSF is handling Solo's discipline both poorly and well, and is both more and less on top of player discipline than the NFL.
Sources:
(1)http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/sports/hope-solo-suspended-for-six-months-by-us-soccer.html?_r=0
(2)http://www.ussoccer.com/womens-national-team/schedule-tickets
(3)http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2016/08/24/22/42/160824-wnt-hope-solo-suspended-from-uswnt-for-six-months
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