The problem of Merritt Paulson
It may be time for the nuclear option
There was a time when Merritt Paulson was the golden boy of North America soccer.
That may seem hard to believe now, but he truly was. When I first started writing about soccer back in 2008, he was a young maverick of an owner. He was hip. He was visible at his D2 Timbers games. He was active on a new Social Media platform called Twitter. Hell, he even posted on BigSoccer sometimes (those younger than ~35 are going to need to trust me here. This mattered).
In short, this wasn’t your dad’s sports’ team owner. For one, he was a soccer advocate. That was still pretty rare back then. He encouraged fans to be rowdy. Probably even enjoyed a craft beer here and now.
Fans at the time ate it up. So did commentators. He was held up as the way that all owners should act.
That worship grew stronger when he lead the Timbers to MLS in 2011. This was proof that a smaller market could elevate itself to the big leagues.
His cool factor grew even more with his embrace of women’s soccer. He bought in to the NWSL right away in 2013 and, more importantly, he bought into the idea that women’s soccer could draw the same, rowdy, soccer mad audience that men’s soccer could. Previously, it was felt by most that you had to target young families and tween girls to women’s soccer — that “real” fans didn’t watch the women’s game.
That was hogwash, of course, and Paulson deserves credit for figuring that out before anyone else — at least anyone else with the money to fund a team.
Paulson was placed on a very high pedestal by most MLS and NWSL fans back around 2013.
The problem with being on a high pedestal is that there’s a long way to fall.
And fall, he has.
For those unaware, the Thorns have been rocked by scandal after scandal over the last few months. It turns out that maybe Paulson wasn’t the progressive hero that most thought he was.
A quick summary: Starting in September 2021, two former Thorns players went public with their accusations of sexual coercion against former Thorns coach Paul Riley. The allegations went back to 2015, when he was with Portland. this prompted a report commissioned by the USSF. In that report, it came out that Paulson helped to cover up the abuse and even went so far as to encourage other teams in the league to hire Riley.
He knew that a coach had made sexually inappropriate actions against a player under him and, rather than making sure no one else would ever face the same issues, he actively went out of his way to help the abuser get back into a position where he could abuse again.
It beggars belief. Truly.
All of this eventually lead to Paulson stepping away from the day-to-day operation of the Thorns and agreeing to sell the team. It took a lot of pressure to get to that point — and the sell hasn’t happened yet — but as of right now he is still apparently trying to sell.
That needs to happen. It’s also not enough. Paulson is still actively involved in soccer and still in position where he could potentially cause harm to young athletes. He still owns the Timbers. Despite calls for him to sell the men’s team as well, he hasn’t budged.
Today, even more came out, when the Thorns were forced to fire their athletic trainer (Pierre Soubrier) after an outside investigation found he illegally distrubted a controlled substance (codeine) to players, and an assistant coach (Sophie Clough) was found to have kissed a player on the back of the neck without consent.
To call the situation in Portland toxic is an understatement. It’s a five alarm fire at a toxic waste dump.
This all happened under Paulson’s watch. it’s clear that he’s either changed since those highwater days when he was being lauded by nearly everyone, or people were only seeing what they wanted to see back then while ignoring the warning signs (hindsight, perhaps, but he was awfully defensive back in those early days and he would quickly get aggressive when his opinions were challenged online).
Regardless, it’s clear: what is coming out cannot be tolerated in sport. the former golden boy needs to go. He cannot be allowed to continue as an owner in MLS or NWSL.
He can’t be given time to get his house in order. He just needs to be gone.
MLS has done it before. Former Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen was forced out for making racist comments. Is there any question that what Paulson did is as damaging or dangerous?
No, there isn’t.
There’s also no choice but to follow the precedent the league set then. No matter how much it hurts to admit that the golden boy wasn’t so golden after all.
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