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≡ SAFESPORT SHAKE-UP ≡
“The U.S. Center for SafeSport announced today that Ju’Riese Colón is no longer serving as Chief Executive Officer. The board of directors has initiated the search for new leadership.
“Board Chair and Paralympic gold medalist April Holmes will be leading an interim management committee composed of members of the board of directors and current leadership team to ensure the Center continues to execute its mission and serve athletes during this time of transition.”
This announcement, made late Tuesday (22nd), is the latest chapter in the tumult surrounding the U.S. Center for SafeSport, hit with concerns over its performance and a hire of an investigator who is now himself facing criminal charges.
In addition to Colon, sources have noted the departures of Board member Autumn Ascano and Director of Investigations Brian Tomlinson; these were not confirmed by SafeSport as of the time this story was posted.
Colon came to SafeSport as its second chief executive, hired in July 2019. During her tenure, the organization expanded and a 2020 law required the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to provide funding of $20 million per year to SafeSport on the first business day of each year.
However, SafeSport’s performance has lagged. At a March 2024 hearing of the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, former NWSL soccer player Mana Shim, testifying as the Chair of the U.S. Soccer Federation Participant Safety Task Force, crystalized the criticisms of the Center thus:
● “First, we need increased transparency by SafeSport. The lack of information sharing is standing in the way of protecting athletes from abuse. If SafeSport does not share information about the allegations it receives, its investigative process, or any findings it might make, we cannot develop an understanding of what appropriate safety measures can and should be instituted.”
● “Second, we need to limit the number of SafeSport investigations that end in administrative closure. Administrative closure is when SafeSport closes a matter without any findings, resolution on the merits, sanctions, or public record of the allegations.
“The administrative closure process leaves parties in limbo indefinitely or, worse, allows sexual predators to fall through the cracks and remain in the sport without restriction. This problem is made worse by the sheer volume of cases SafeSport ‘resolves’ in this manner. In soccer, approximately 89% of all cases involving sexual misconduct with no criminal disposition are administratively closed.”
● “Third, we need to ensure that U.S. Soccer and other NGBs can take action when SafeSport does not. When SafeSport administratively closes a matter, it maintains exclusive jurisdiction. If an NGB like U.S. Soccer tries to take any sort of action to protect athletes, SafeSport will report them to Congress and initiate an investigation against the NGB. We believe that NGBs should be allowed to take some form of action in cases following an administrative closure so they can ensure abuse does not occur in the future.”
● “Finally, we need to rethink the appeals process. SafeSport’s appeals process gives respondents who are found to have engaged in harassment or abuse the right to an entirely new fact-finding process. Rather than rely on the record of the original investigation, victims of abuse who were brave enough to participate in an investigation are forced to go through the process all over again.
“In cases where the victim is unwilling to participate in a second proceeding, SafeSport has vacated its findings, or arbitrators have overturned SafeSport’s decisions, resulting in SafeSport lifting sanctions against abusers, even after they had been found by substantial evidence to have committed sexual misconduct.”
Concern over SafeSport expanded dramatically in January, when The Associated Press reported that investigator Jason Krasley, hired in 2021, had been charged with rape, sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution during his time as an Allentown, Pennsylvania police officer, and that SafeSport knew he was under investigation at the time it hired him. It dismissed Krasley in November 2024.
In February, a Seminole County (Florida) Court issued an order concerning a 2022 case involving female water polo players in the state, where SafeSport was instructed to produce evidence in its possession and refused; the order included:
“a) That the United States Center for SafeSport, Inc., perpetrated a fraud upon the Court, the People of the State of Florida, the Sheriff’s Office, the State’s Attorney Office, and defendant; b) that the United States Center for SafeSport, Inc., intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence; c) that the United States Center for SafeSport, Inc., acted in bad faith, intentionally, and with malice; and d) that the court finds the evidence of fraud, collusion, pretense, and similar wrongdoing to be clear, convincing, intentional, and beyond doubt.”
During the House sub-committee hearing, Colon said that SafeSport, which had 2023 revenues of about $24 million, needed $30 million a year to adequately process the caseload it was receiving.
Observed: SafeSport was created by the Congress in 2017 to deal with the mess left by the Larry Nassar gymnastics abuse scandal, along with issues in other sports such as swimming and taekwondo. The $20 million subsidy that the USOPC was ordered to pay by a later law helped expand the staff, but the performance of the Center for SafeSport has simply not met the expectations of athletes, parents, officials or the National Governing Bodies.
Colon was at the head of this organization and was under pressure, but issue after issue popped up, with the Krasley case and the Florida judge’s scolding the most publicly damaging.
SafeSport needs to be better funded, but also much better managed. There are also significant questions for the SafeSport Board and for Congress on SafeSport’s jurisdiction and how its purview exists alongside what are clearly – in some cases – crimes that should be prosecuted at the state or Federal level.
Simply hiring a new chief executive will not solve those questions.
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