Hope Solo’s six month suspension comes as a collective slap on the wrist, born out of convenience rather than meant to become a lesson. It is a lesson for the veteran, but months too late.
In 2015, Solo was suspended for thirty days following the arrest of her husband for driving a team owned van while under the influence. She was pulled over in the van with her. A longer suspension would have coincided with the World Cup, but with no major international tournaments until 2018, Solo finds herself facing a lengthy sentence. Additionally, when she faced allegations of domestic violence months ago, she was never suspended. As Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times suggests, any suspension as a result of the accusations would have put the United States team without their starting goaltender of nearly the last decade.
It says something about the sport world that showing poor sportsmanship by calling Swedish opponents a “bunch of cowards” warrants more of a punishment than allegedly hitting your half-sister and her child. “The comments by Hope Solo after the match against Sweden during the 2016 Olympics were unacceptable, and do not meet the standard of conduct we require from our national team players,” said US Soccer president Sunil Gulati in a statement justifying her suspension.
To Gulati, winning was more important than sending a message here. Don’t believe me? At this point, some of you reading this article will cry out, “but wait, those were just allegations!” If you are that person, ask yourself if you would say that about the Average Joe or if you are just hiding behind the legal process to protect your fandom over the safety of others. As if protecting the sacristy of “the Game” puts results over morals. It’s a rhetorical question, because the answer should be obvious to anyone who has ever watched a sport star be allowed to play on while under federal investigation for a crime. The headlines about their play becomes a centerpiece with the allegations becoming a backdrop for the narrative, a distraction, at best.
In the words of Solo, US Soccer is a bunch of cowards for waiting until now to punish Solo. While we should applaud them for arriving to this point, I can’t help but ask why it didn’t happen sooner. The answer is simple if you look at the hardware. In the past four years, Solo has won a gold medal for Team USA in London and a World Cup in Vancouver. Now, at the age of thirty-five—an age where goalkeepers’ skills tend to decline—she finds herself facing a lofty suspension that conveniently comes at a time where, as Deadspin puts it, the “US National team doesn’t need her.” If Solo had any competition for the starting goalkeeper job, she would have not been in Rio de Janeiro, mocking a domestic, increasingly international health crisis, to begin with.
An athlete’s leash is only as good as the talent is.
