Here We Go Again With Phil Murphy Being Connected To Poor Living Conditions For Soccer Professionals

Recently Phil Murphy’s professional women’s soccer team, Sky Blue, managed to get into the news again. This time it was due to the team’s possible involvement in an alleged fraudulent visa scheme.

A little rehashing of some of the stories that came out about the team’s possible involvement in an alleged fraudulent visa scheme is necessary because it is likely that the press in New Jersey will let Murphy off the hook again.

They’ve already started letting him off the hook. For example, in an NJ.com piece they mention emails in which “…Murphy is asked by another co-owner of Sky Blue whether it’s OK to speak to an attorney about a scouting agreement…” while other publications such as The Equalizer state Murphy is “…copied on several emails between GPS, Sky Blue, and their attorneys in which they are negotiating a deal,” according to the report.” The Equalizer is a blog that exclusively posts news stories and pieces about women's professional soccer. They do an excellent job.

Never mind the fact that according to The Boston Globe, “Other than the Breakers, Sky Blue was Global Premier’s most active partner in the immigration arrangement, submitting petitions for about 40 visa applicants on behalf of Global Premier, according to company records.” The same report clearly states the folks who received the visa and were supposed to work for the teams as coaches or scouts never worked for the professional teams:

However, once the workers received their visas, they fanned out across the country to coach youth clubs affiliated with Global Premier. They never worked as scouts and never were paid by the professional teams, according to former Global Premier coaches and company records.

So, Murphy’s soccer team helped 40 people get into the United States in an alleged visa scheme and he was copied on several emails on the matter according to published reports.

That’s bad enough but something else that jumped out at me is a report by The Guardian that states foreign coaches “were allegedly crammed into overcrowded houses.”

The report by The Guardian reminded me of the stories of how Murphy’s soccer team forced players to deal with poor living conditions.

Thanks to the aforementioned report by The Guardian we now have to ask if Murphy likes that his policies, or more accurately the policies of his soccer team, seem to lead to people living in shoddy living conditions.

And, it turns out that The Guardian is not the first to point out that the folks coming over in this alleged visa scheme are forced to live in poor conditions.

Stephen Griffin, an author and former CEO of Legacy Global Sports, wrote in his blog, “Once in the U.S., the coaches are often underpaid, some are forced into unacceptable living arrangements, occasionally threatened, and located in states that are inconsistent with their visa applications – often resulting in inappropriate payroll tax treatment.”

So, here we go again with Murphy being connected to unacceptable living conditions for soccer professionals. The only question left to ask is if the press will investigate if Murphy knew he was connected to more soccer professionals living in unacceptable conditions.