Christy Holly, Northern Irish coach, has been accused of sexual misconduct after allegedly masturbating in front of Erin Simon.
The investigation is being conducted on behalf of the US Soccer Federation by an Atlanta law firm and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
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Erin Simon was playing for Racing Louisville at the time of the alleged misconduct. She currently plays for Leicester City in the Women’s Super League.
Holly, the accused coach, was in charge of Racing Louisville from August 2020 to August 2021.
The misconduct was brought to light when Simon agreed to have her name published in a report. In the report, she accuses Holly of sending her naked photos, masturbating in her presence, and touching her genitals and breasts every time she made an incorrect pass while watching a match replay in private with him.
The report reads:
Holly told her that he was going to touch her ‘for every pass you f****d up’ and he did. Simon tried to laugh it off, and said she would ‘not f up any more passes.
Then, she recalled, Holly started touching her, repeatedly pushing his hands under her pants to touch her genitals and under her bra to touch her breasts. She remembers she tightly crossed her legs and pushed his hand away.
Simon said she tried hard ‘to keep the peace and the balance and to keep [Holly] from getting mad’.
The video ended and she left. Simon says Holly shortly thereafter texted her: ‘You were drier than the Sahara down there’. After the session ended, [teammate Brooke] Hendrix picked Simon up, and Simon showed her the text.
Hendrix corroborated seeing this text and described how upset and distraught Simon was that day: ‘she started crying immediately in the car’.
Simon claims she told the coach that the abuse had to stop. Inturn, he verbally abused and humiliated her in front of her teammates. Holly has since been fired following the revelation.
Simon has since issued the following statement on the matter:
This report allows our voices to finally be heard and is the first step toward achieving the respectful workplace we all deserve.
It is my sincere hope that the pain we have all experienced and the change we have all brought about will be for the good of our league and this game we all deeply love.
Club President for Louisville, James O’Connor, also issued a statement this week on behalf of the club, calling Holly’s appointment “a mistake.”
It read:
The U.S. Soccer-released Sally Yates report which was published earlier this week served as a harsh reminder that appointing Christy Holly as Racing Louisville FC’s first coach was a mistake.
We have learned from that mistake, and we apologize to Erin Simon, to our players past and present and to our fans. We commend Erin for her bravery in coming forward as part of U.S. Soccer’s investigation.
And while our former coach was terminated within 24 hours of us being alerted to the behavior, we know that wasn’t enough and that we failed our locker room by creating a space where this behavior could occur.
We have worked hard every day since then to ensure a safe environment that puts players in a position to succeed. This includes implementation of club-wide anonymous reporting services and a re-evaluated hiring process for staff.
We will cooperate with the ongoing NWSL/NWSLPA joint investigation and welcome recommendations to improve our organization for the betterment of players.
The Joint Investigative Team may be contacted at [email protected] or you may reach out to the NWSL or NWSLPA directly or through any other club and league reporting channels.
We are not the same club that we were in August of 2021. We now owe it to our players and community to prove it.
Statement released on club’s website