The last year of scandals has taken a toll on the public image of the Portland Thorns and Timbers, as club stakeholders and fans have navigated the failures that tarnished the clubs’ reputation. The latest and most damaging moment thus far? The release of the U.S. Soccer investigation’s findings on Monday.
PTFC was for many years viewed a beacon of light in the ever-growing landscape of American soccer, offering a window into the possibilities of an upstart professional sport. But off-field issues that became deep cracks in owner Merritt Paulson’s tenuous empire have been forming for almost a decade.
Even if the outside perception of the club was overwhelmingly positive for a long time, the issues that led to the firings of executives Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub this week have been there, permeating, for years.
Here’s a timeline of events that led up to this week’s release of the U.S. Soccer report and the subsequent fallout:
2007: PAULSON BUYS THE TIMBERS, BEAVERS
Paulson, the son of former Goldman Sachs CEO and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, purchased the Portland Timbers of the USL and Triple-A baseball’s Portland Beavers from Sacramento, California, businessman Abe Alizadeh in 2007.
Paulson sold the Beavers in 2010, making way for a remodel of then-PGE Park to better fit the needs of a professional soccer team. The Beavers, without a home stadium, soon relocated to Tucson, Arizona.
Gavin Wilkinson — a former player for the USL version of the Timbers — coached the club from 2007 to 2010. He would soon join the front office as it transitioned to MLS.
2011: TIMBERS JOIN MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
The Timbers joined MLS as an expansion team in 2011, with Paulson paying a $35 million expansion fee. PGE Park had become Jeld-Wen Field after $40 million in renovations.
Portland played its first-ever MLS match on March 19, 2011, falling 3-1 to the Colorado Rapids. Sitting in the executive suite? Mike Golub, who would soon be named the 2011 MLS executive of the year.
Tales of Golub loudly expressing his anger in meetings, shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive, date back as far as that year. Wilkinson had to fill in as Timbers coach in 2012 after the firing of John Spencer, and the team’s struggles on the field led to fans on social media calling for Wilkinson’s ouster, rallying around the hashtag #GWOut.
It would not be the last time the hashtag had relevance.
2013-2014: PORTLAND THORNS ARRIVE; PAUL RILEY HIRED
The Portland Thorns’ inaugural year in the National Women’s Soccer League came in 2013, established by Paulson and his executives under the business umbrella “PTFC.”
After leading the Thorns to the first-ever NWSL championship that year, coach Cindy Parlow Cone resigned to spend more time with her family. According to the U.S. Soccer investigation, Golub made an inappropriate sexual remark to Parlow Cone in 2013.
Soon after Parlow Cone’s departure, the Thorns hired Paul Riley, a former English player with a reputation for success coaching women’s teams.
At this point, Riley already had been allegedly coercing a player from one of his previous teams, Sinead Farrelly, into a sexual relationship, according to reporting by The Athletic. Riley orchestrated a trade for Farrelly to the Thorns in 2014. That same year, per the U.S. Soccer investigation, Paulson was warned by U.S. women’s national team players that Riley “created a hostile environment,” and “belittle(d) and verbally abuse(d)” his players.
Paulson did not act on that information, the U.S. Soccer investigation concluded.
2015: TIMBERS WIN MLS CUP; RILEY FIRED
Thorns player Mana Shim, who had confided in teammate Alex Morgan about the alleged abuse, filed a sexual harassment complaint against Riley to the Thorns front office on Sept. 16, 2015. The Thorns investigated and determined Riley violated several team policies, firing him with cause. But publicly, the club said Riley’s contract simply wasn’t renewed, leaving the impression Riley had not been retained because of poor on-field performance. The reasons for his firing were never made public, but the findings of Portland’s internal investigation were shared privately with U.S. Soccer and the NWSL.
As the issues bubbled under the surface with the Thorns, the Timbers won MLS Cup in December 2015, beating the Columbus Crew 2-1 on the road to earn the MLS franchise’s first championship.
2016: RILEY KEEPS COACHING
Despite firing Riley for cause and knowing the full breadth of Shim’s allegations, both Paulson and Wilkinson continued to advocate and express their admiration for Riley in 2016.
The Western New York Flash were considering Riley for their coaching vacancy, and in a conversation with the Flash, Wilkinson said Shim “put (Riley) in a bad position” and that he would “hire him in a heartbeat,” according to the U.S. Soccer investigation. Riley was later hired by the Flash.
“Best of luck this season and congrats on the Riley hire,” Paulson wrote in an email to the Flash’s president. “I have a lot of affection for him.”
The Thorns won their first NWSL Shield in 2016 under first-year head coach Mark Parsons, but were eliminated in the NWSL semifinals by Riley and the Flash. Meanwhile, Golub’s alleged inappropriate behavior continued unabated:
“I was discussing my workout routine with Mike, like how often I go and everything, and he looked my body up and down multiple times and said to me, ‘I think yoga would be good for your body, too,’” a former employee told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “It just felt so gross.”
2018-2019: ISSUES REMAIN INSIDE PTFC
Organizational issues inside PTFC lingered long after Riley’s departure.
One female employee told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Golub gave her an unwanted shoulder rub in the office in 2018. Another female employee was moved out of Paulson’s owner’s box on the days the Timbers and Thorns played, and was forced to pump breastmilk for her child in a cramped, dusty electrical closet on the lower level of Providence Park. She shared videos and photos of the space.
Other women recounted instances of angry tirades from Paulson and Golub as recently as 2019. Blair Neelands, one of Golub’s former employees, detailed personal experiences in which Golub physically knocked her down in a joking manner, threw soccer balls at her in meetings, and moments where she and coworkers dealt with unwanted physical closeness and touching from Golub. In an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, Golub later denied the incidents while calling himself a “tactile New Yorker.”
In August 2019, the Timbers Army and front office (along with MLS executives) clashed over the Army’s right to display the “Iron Front” antifascist symbol on signs and banners in the crowd. The controversy drew national attention.
2021: A BOMBSHELL FROM THE ATHLETIC
In October 2021, The Athletic published an exposé on Riley’s alleged sexual coercion and harassment of Shim and Farrelly during their time with the Thorns. It was the first time the public became aware of the allegations against Riley, and that the Thorns had concealed the true reasons for his departure from the club. Wilkinson faced criticism by Shim for his alleged attempts to silence her sexual orientation, too.
Paulson wrote a letter to fans apologizing for the club’s mistakes and promising change, and the team would later unveil a list of accountability, engagement and equity initiatives. Investigations were soon launched by both U.S. Soccer and the NWSL/NWSLPA into abuses across the NWSL, with the Riley scandal serving as a major catalyst.
Portland won the NWSL Shield in 2021, but fell in the semifinals of the playoffs again.
2022: ANDY POLO, MADISON SHANLEY, U.S. SOCCER’S VERDICT
In February 2022, the Timbers terminated the contract of Andy Polo after his partner, Génessis Alarcon, alleged on Peruvian television that he committed domestic violence against her. One of the incidents she described came in Portland in May 2021, and the Timbers had sent representatives to Polo’s residence — including director of security Jim McCausland — to mediate.
The Timbers did not report the incident to MLS, and the club was fined in 2022 for failing to do so. However, MLS found the Timbers engaged in “no intentional wrongdoing.” Additionally, Wilkinson had signed Polo to an extension a few months after the alleged incident, which drew criticism from fans. He later claimed on the Soccer Made in Portland podcast that it was an attempt to set up a trade elsewhere for Polo.
In April 2022, Golub came under fire for his handling of a T-shirt protest by PTFC anthem singer Madison Shanley, who wore a shirt that said “You Knew” in reference to the front office’s handling of the Riley and Polo scandals. Golub called Shanley’s father — a personal friend of his — before her anthem performance and asked that he encourage his daughter to avoid wearing the shirt, a move viewed by fans and Shanley as misogynistic. She wore the shirt anyway and her protest went viral.
The Oregonian/OregonLive published its investigation into the PTFC workplace culture under Golub in August 2022.
On Monday, the U.S. Soccer report was released and it detailed nearly a decade of failures at PTFC. In the aftermath, Paulson announced that he would step aside from all Thorns-related decision-making and one day later fired Wilkinson and Golub.
The club’s once-pristine reputation, meanwhile, has been severely tarnished, as players, coaches, fans and sponsors have made repeated calls for major, institutional change in Portland and throughout professional soccer.
Read the full U.S. Soccer report here.
-- Ryan Clarke, rclarke@oregonian.com, Twitter: @RyanTClarke
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