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After Bob Birarda, who is a former coach, was previously accused of inappropriate conduct and is currently facing nine sex-related charges in BC provincial court, the Vancouver team is dealing with the same thing by another former coach of the club’s now-defunct women’s team.

If you haven’t heard yet, a report by The Guardian last Thursday, featured former player Malloree Enoch accusing the former head coach of the Whitecaps women’s team in 2010 and 2011, Hubert Busby Jr. She said that during a recruiting process, he attempted to solicit sex from her.

Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster released a statement last week revealing that Major League Soccer (MLS) will be launching an investigation into the handling of the Busby situation that will be led by independent counsel.

Schuster said that he has reached out to Malloree Enoch. He mentioned,

“I have not spoken with her to look better or to share something. But I can confirm that I have reached out to her. I don’t want to [have it] look like I have only done [so] that I now can tell all the media that I’ve spoken with her. I’ve done it with a real intention, and for that reason, I don’t even like to speak too much about it.”

He adds that he has sent out an email to every player connected with the Whitecaps to feel free to connect with him confidentially. They have a whistleblower email and whistleblower phone number where people can reach out to a third party to bring up things anonymously.

I think that is a really great step to direct people to a third party to do this as it makes it feel fairer.

You know, it’s quite bittersweet to me that all these sexual misconducts are coming to light when it comes to teams and in sports. It’s like I’m happy that more and more of these issues are being dealt with but at the same time, it’s sad that there are just too many of them.

I hope that came out right. I guess what I mean is that I’m happy that justice will be served but also, I’m sad that they had to go through that and will now have to kind of go through it again. It’s brave.