The Soccer World Recognizes Phil Murphy’s Dismal Record Of Poor Treatment Of Women

Last week was a short blogging week at The Bob & Steve Show. I planned on doing a piece last Thursday about Phil Murphy’s professional women’s soccer team, Sky Blue FC, holding open tryouts next month and that it will only cost women $100 to try out for a team with owners who treat women like crap. I didn’t write the piece because the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) held their draft, so I decided to watch the livestream and then add to the piece. Then life got in the way the rest of the day and I was too busy to get a post up Friday.

We did end up talking about Murphy and his soccer team for a little while on Saturday’s radio show and suggested that if he cares about women as much as he claims that maybe he could pickup the $100 tab for anyone trying out for his team. To be fair, we did mention that it appears to be a league-wide rule that open tryouts come with a charge but could find nothing in the rules posted on the NWSL website about who has to pay the fee. Murphy could afford it.

Anyway, back to the draft. One would think getting drafted by a professional sports team would be a happy day in the life of a young athlete. Not if the young athlete is drafted by Murphy’s soccer team. The Tweets during the draft back that up. Some were brutal:

Julia Ashley was the sixth pick overall, she’s a Jersey girl. It appears she would rather go to Europe. According to Philly.com:

One of Sky Blue’s marquee first-round picks, University of North Carolina defender Julia Ashley — a northern New Jersey native, by the way — told reporters after she was selected: “I’m not positive of what I want to do in regards to if I’m going to stay or go abroad. I have to explore those options. I’ve been talking to my agent about possibly France, Sweden or Germany. I’m not sure yet.”

Ashley wasn’t the only issue with a drafted player. Sky Blue also had the second overall pick, Hailie Mace, a women’s soccer superstar, doesn’t want to play for Murphy’s team either. Again, according to Philly.com:

A few hours later, Equalizer Soccer reported that Sky Blue’s biggest prize of the day, UCLA and U.S. women’s youth national team defender Hailie Mace, does not intend to report to the club. Novo acknowledged “there are challenges” with Mace, the No. 2 overall pick, and acknowledged they’ve been caused by the club’s off-the-field troubles.

It’s obvious the soccer world knows how Murphy, or at least his soccer team, treats women. At The Bob & Steve Show we’ve been talking about Murphy’s mistreatment of women since August of last year. We basically were saying the soccer team was the tip of the iceberg and to watch for problems in his administration. It looks like we were right, just ask Katie Brennan or Allison Kopicki.

We’ve also complained a lot that local media has been letting Murphy off the hook on the issue of the mistreatment of the women on his soccer team. We are hopeful that the recent Philly.com report means local media is going to stop giving Murphy a free pass. Time will tell.