Alex Morgan made a splash on the USWNT in 2011 by scoring a goal in the semi-final and final of that year’s World Cup on top of scoring a critical goal that qualified the U.S. for the tournament. Morgan became the heir apparent to Mia Hamm's name recognition, but the greatest thing she ever did in her career was off the field. That is, she helped expose Paul Riley and the NWSL front office.

In the direct aftermath of The Athletics’ reporting on Paul Riley, Lisa Baird - the then NWSL commissioner - made the grave error of thinking she could get away with lying about her knowledge of his sexual misconduct. Through the NWSL, she released a statement that in part said, “I was shocked and disgusted to read the new allegations reported in The Athletic this morning.” One hour and twenty-nine minutes later Alex Morgan quote tweeted that statement and said, “The league was informed of these allegations multiple times and refused multiple times to investigate the allegations. The league must accept responsibility for a process that failed to protect its own players from this abuse.” Morgan also showed two emails: one from Sinead Farrelly to Lisa Baird (and the NWSL HR email address) dated April 28, 2021 saying that her experiences with Riley had never been investigated and asking for the league to take action to protect players, and the response from Baird to Farrelly dated May 5, 2021 (with Lisa Levine and Aries Pickett CC’d), which boiled down to Baird saying nothing would be done to address Farrelly’s concerns.

Lisa Baird resigned as the NWSL commissioner the next day (Lisa Levine was ousted. Aries Pickett - according to her LinkedIn - continued to work for the NWSL until June 2025). Baird was never going to survive. The league (and U.S. Soccer) needed scapegoats for the utter failure by so many from top to bottom, and an unwritten job duty of being a commissioner of a league is being the scapegoat when the owners need one. However, without Morgan, Baird might have survived longer than she did. In fact, it is not out of the realm of possibilities that without Alex Morgan’s support, Mana Shim and then Sinead Farrelly would never have come forward.  

Fast forward to the present and Alex Morgan is having her jersey retired by the San Diego Wave on Sunday, but it is Morgan’s connection to the Wave that leads to questions about if she is duplicitous, a hypocrite, a sellout, or a combination. One could question why Morgan would have ever even signed to play for the Wave given that the expansion team had Jill Ellis as the club’s president and Ron Burkle as the owner. One could explain away the Jill Ellis factor in that if the NWSL didn’t take action against Ellis for being named in the Yates Report, then there was nothing Morgan could do. Plus, Morgan had already had to put up with Ellis during her coaching tenure of the USWNT, so despite it not being a secret how much the players disliked her, Morgan was already well versed in dealing with her. One could also explain away the Ron Burkle factor by saying that when she signed on, it was not yet public record that Burkle is listed in Epstein documents as having "knowledge of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein's sexual trafficking conduct” (plus if she questioned Burkle's ties to Epstein should would have to do the same of the head of the agency she is signed to). Perhaps Morgan failed to do even the slightest bit of online research to discover Burkle’s horrible reputation and that lawsuits seem to follow him - including for his failed MLS club. Perhaps a donation by Burkle to her foundation was enough to make her not question anything. An even better explanation for Morgan signing to play for the Wave is that she wanted to play in her home state and L.A. wasn’t an option, and when you get down to it all NWSL clubs have skeletons in the closet. 

So yes, Morgan playing for the Wave has understandable explanations. What does not have a good explanation is why -  given everything hanging over the Wave's head since 2024 - she went on to become a minority investor of the Wave in May 2025 after retiring in 2024.  In July 2024, former Wave staff member, Brittany Alvarado, blew the whistle on the toxic culture at the Wave. Multiple other former staff then concurred. Alvarado called out Jill Ellis by name, so Ellis in turn sued her for defamation. This case is ongoing with the Anti-SLAPP motion to be heard in October (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - i.e. lawsuits meant to intimidate people from making critical statements that fall under free speech - and California has some of the best protections in the country). In October 2024, Brittany Alvarado and four other former Wave staff members filed a lawsuit against the Wave and NWSL. One of the plaintiffs is listed as a Jane Doe because she was sexually assaulted by a Wave staff member. A sixth former Wave staffer and second Jane Doe (who was sexually harassed by the same man who assualted Jane Doe 1) later joined the suit. This case is also still ongoing and unless the Wave and NWSL are each willing to settle with the plaintiffs, it has the potential to expose a lot of dirty laundry. With all this going on with the Wave it is mindboggling why Alex Morgan would want to attach herself to the club. While an argument can be made that it was not her duty to take any action while she was a Wave player that argument does not hold up now that she is an investor in the club.

The same day the former Wave staff members came forward in July 2024, Morgan tweeted, “I am disappointed to hear about the allegations made by multiple former Wave FC employees today. As players, we have worked hard to build a team that is surrounded by an inclusive, positive and safe environment. But it’s important to me that we are creating that environment for both players AND staff throughout the entire organization. Equity in the workplace is something I have and will continue to advocate for. I want to be proud of what we are building at the Wave but it is clear that there is so much work to be done.” Not only does it not seem to align to go from that statement to investing in a club that fired a victim of sexual assault while continuing to employ the sexual predator until a second Jane Doe came forward, but Morgan could be playing with fire. If it comes out in the discovery process that Morgan already did know what was going on at the club, then her tweet of disappointment is the exact same lie that Lisa Baird told. 

Morgan’s current silence regarding the issues at San Diego seems antithetical to her past, but maybe it actually is not. Maybe Morgan only helped take down Paul Riley because she counts Mana Shim as a close friend. Maybe she just never wanted to have to see Paul Riley’s smug face on a soccer field ever again. Maybe with everything going on in the country she read Animal Farm, and despite having gone to Berkeley misunderstood it and actually believes, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Maybe Morgan concurs with the NWSL’s claim that no duty of care is owed to club employees (though she would be fundamentally misunderstanding that claim).

The most disheartening of all maybes is that maybe Morgan is just tired of having to fight. Female athletes have to fight for every little thing that is just handed to their male counterparts – even when they outperform them. It is pretty much a certainty that Morgan would have rather spend her career only focused on the actual soccer of it all. Maybe Morgan saw that Lisa Baird landed on her feet as the CEO of  Next Up, which is a nonprofit whose "mission is to build the next generation of leaders and foster inclusive workplace cultures that advance all people, including women, in business."  Maybe Morgan saw that despite Merritt Paulson being forced into selling the Thorns he made off like a bandit with tens of millions from the sale and didn’t get driven out of the MLS. Maybe Morgan saw that Steve Malik got off pretty much scot-free after the Yates Report revelations of what he knew about Paul Riley and when he knew it (a $100,000 fine is a joke for hiring and keeping Riley as the head coach of the Courage). Maybe Morgan saw that Curt Johnson not only received no punishment for his part in the lack of oversight of Riley at the Courage, and the Denver Summit went and hired him as their GM (and Lisa Baird had the gall to not only comment on the hiring on LinkedIn but to go as far as to call Johnson “a great proven leader”). The list could go on, and on, and on in how the NWSL failed to fully reckon with and actually change post 2021, so maybe Morgan thought, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

At the end of the day there is no reason (other than principles) for Morgan not to cash in. She probably even enjoys being the Wave’s dog and pony show. In an interview with ESPN in October 2022, Morgan said of the Paul Riley cover-up, "I just wanted to support [Mana Shim] and help her in holding people accountable that needed to be held accountable. It's just sad that it took years and years of us forcing people's hand to remove him from his position of power." It is sad that people in the NWSL yet again need to be held accontable, and it is even sadder that Morgan appears to be on the wrong side this time around.