[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"header-nav":3,"footer-nav":29,"article-maddy-cusack-inquest-duty-of-care-womens-football":82,"category-counts-nav":99,"related-maddy-cusack-inquest-duty-of-care-womens-football":109},[4,8,11,14,17,20,23,26],{"label":5,"to":6,"exact":7},"Home","\u002F",true,{"label":9,"to":10},"World Cup","\u002Fworldcup",{"label":12,"to":13},"Standings","\u002Fstandings",{"label":15,"to":16},"Football","\u002Fcategory\u002Ffootball",{"label":18,"to":19},"Basketball","\u002Fcategory\u002Fbasketball",{"label":21,"to":22},"Tennis","\u002Fcategory\u002Ftennis",{"label":24,"to":25},"F1","\u002Fcategory\u002Ff1",{"label":27,"to":28},"Long Reads","\u002Fcategory\u002Flong-reads",{"brand":30,"columns":32,"tagline":80,"copyright":81},{"description":31},"In-depth sports journalism covering football, basketball, tennis, F1, and beyond. Daily analysis, long reads, and expert opinion.",[33,51,59],{"heading":34,"links":35},"Leagues",[36,39,42,45,48],{"label":37,"to":38},"Premier League","\u002Ftag\u002Fpremier-league",{"label":40,"to":41},"La Liga","\u002Ftag\u002Fla-liga",{"label":43,"to":44},"NBA","\u002Ftag\u002Fnba",{"label":46,"to":47},"Formula 1","\u002Ftag\u002Fformula-1",{"label":49,"to":50},"Champions League","\u002Ftag\u002Fchampions-league",{"heading":52,"links":53},"Content",[54,56,57],{"label":55,"to":16},"Analysis",{"label":27,"to":28},{"label":58,"to":16},"Data & Stats",{"heading":60,"links":61},"Company",[62,65,68,71,74,77],{"label":63,"to":64},"Terms of Service","\u002Fservice",{"label":66,"to":67},"Privacy Policy","\u002Fprivacy",{"label":69,"to":70},"Editorial Policy","\u002Feditorial",{"label":72,"to":73},"Contact Us","\u002Fcontact",{"label":75,"to":76},"About Us","\u002Fabout",{"label":78,"to":79},"Website Disclaimer","\u002Fdisclaimer","Built for the love of sport","© SportPulse. All rights reserved.",{"title":83,"slug":84,"category":85,"badge":86,"author":87,"excerpt":88,"date":89,"readTime":90,"image":91,"imageAlt":83,"tags":92,"body":97,"_path":98},"Maddy Cusack Inquest Exposes the Human Cost of a Broken Culture in Women's Football","maddy-cusack-inquest-duty-of-care-womens-football","football","Feature","Elena Rossi","Testimony at the Cusack inquest reveals allegations of body-shaming and bullying that the women's game must confront head-on.","2026-06-30 21:49:57","6 min read","https:\u002F\u002Fi.guim.co.uk\u002Fimg\u002Fmedia\u002Fc9823843560f747225d9566b2220ffac484bce2d\u002F528_0_4485_3588\u002Fmaster\u002F4485.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=dd315254f6b371ba7c98e035bf4da7ea",[93,94,95,96],"Women's Super League","Women's Championship","Sheffield United","Football Governance","## A Courtroom That Speaks Louder Than Any Scoreline\n\nFootball's most consequential stories are not always written on the pitch. On Tuesday at Chesterfield coroner's court, Grace Riglar took the witness stand and, through tears she could barely contain, offered testimony that cuts to the very heart of a question the women's game has been avoiding for too long: **what duty of care do professional clubs owe their players?**\n\nRiglar, who spent one season as a teammate of the late **Maddy Cusack** at Sheffield United Women, told the inquest that then-manager **Jonathan Morgan** allegedly called Cusack a \"psycho\" and that Cusack's eating habits shifted noticeably after Morgan made a comment referencing her weight. At one point during the cross-examination by lawyers representing Sheffield United, Riglar had to request a break. The weight of the evidence was visibly crushing.\n\nCusack, who served Sheffield United with distinction as both a player and a marketing executive, died in **September 2023** at the age of **27**. She had been at the club for six years, a remarkable commitment in a sport where loyalty is increasingly rare. The inquest now underway is tasked with establishing the circumstances surrounding her death, but what has already emerged in testimony paints a picture of a workplace environment that, if substantiated, would represent a profound institutional failure.\n\n## \"A Personal Attack\": When Selection Becomes Something Darker\n\nOne of the most striking details from Riglar's evidence was Cusack's own characterisation of her omission from the squad. She described it not as a sporting decision, not as the natural rotation of a competitive squad, but as a **\"personal attack.\"** That distinction matters enormously.\n\nIn elite football, squad selection is the most powerful tool a manager possesses. It can be used constructively, to motivate, to manage fitness, to test tactical flexibility. But it can also be weaponised. When a player believes that being left out is not about performance but about punishment, the entire dynamic of trust between coach and athlete collapses.\n\nThe allegation that Morgan referred to Cusack as a \"psycho\" suggests a relationship that had deteriorated well beyond the boundaries of professional disagreement. If that language was used, it speaks to an environment where personal character attacks replaced honest performance feedback, and where a player's mental well-being was treated as collateral.\n\n## The Weight Comment: A Known Trigger With Devastating Consequences\n\nThe claim that Cusack's eating habits changed after an alleged weight-related remark from Morgan is perhaps the most alarming element of Tuesday's testimony, and it demands the football world's full attention.\n\nBody image and disordered eating are not abstract risks in women's football. They are documented, well-studied, and endemic. Research published by **FIFPRO** has consistently shown that female footballers face disproportionate pressure around body composition, often from coaching staff who lack adequate training in nutrition or athlete welfare. The **RED-S (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport)** framework, increasingly adopted by medical professionals across European football, identifies exactly the kind of behavioural change Riglar described as a warning sign that requires immediate intervention.\n\nFor a manager to allegedly make a comment about a player's weight in a professional setting, without the safety net of qualified nutritional support and psychological monitoring, is not simply poor management. It is reckless. And when that player subsequently alters her eating habits, the alarm should be sounding at every level of the organisation.\n\n## Sheffield United's Institutional Responsibility\n\nThe fact that Sheffield United has legal representation actively cross-examining witnesses at this inquest tells its own story. The club is not a passive observer. It is, by necessity, a central participant in these proceedings because the allegations concern what happened within its walls, under its management structure, and within its duty of care obligations.\n\nSheffield United did release a statement following Cusack's death expressing devastation and offering condolences. The club honoured her with tributes at Bramall Lane, and her **number 8 shirt** was retired. These gestures were genuine and appropriate. But gestures do not replace accountability.\n\nThe inquest will examine whether the club had adequate safeguarding protocols, whether complaints were heard and acted upon, and whether the welfare structures that should exist in any professional sporting organisation were functioning. **Jonathan Morgan left Sheffield United in 2023**, and the reasons for his departure will almost certainly become a focal point as proceedings continue.\n\nFor a club that operates across both the men's and women's professional pyramid, the standard of care must be identical. There is no tier of football where a player's wellbeing is negotiable.\n\n## A Pattern the Women's Game Cannot Ignore\n\nCusack's case does not exist in isolation. It arrives at a moment when women's football is reckoning with a series of governance and welfare failures that threaten to undermine its extraordinary growth.\n\nThe **2024 NWSL abuse scandal** in the United States led to the resignation of multiple coaches and executives and prompted sweeping reforms to safeguarding standards. In England, the **Football Association** has strengthened its licensing requirements for Women's Super League and Championship clubs, but implementation remains uneven, particularly further down the pyramid.\n\nThe question that Cusack's inquest forces into the open is whether the rapid professionalisation of women's football has outpaced the development of the support structures that should accompany it. Clubs have invested in facilities, coaching, and commercial operations. Have they invested equally in mental health provision, anti-bullying protocols, and trained welfare officers?\n\nIf Riglar's account is accurate, a player at a professional club was allegedly subjected to demeaning language, experienced a noticeable change in her relationship with food, and felt that team selection was being used as a tool of personal targeting. And yet the safeguards that should have caught those warning signs either did not exist or did not function.\n\n## What Comes Next\n\nThe inquest at Chesterfield coroner's court is expected to continue hearing evidence in the coming days and weeks. Further witnesses will be called, and the full picture of Cusack's experience at Sheffield United will become clearer.\n\nFor the football community, the obligation is straightforward. This cannot be treated as an isolated tragedy to be mourned and moved past. It must be treated as a systemic failure to be understood and corrected.\n\nThe **FA**, the **Women's Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL)**, and every club in the professional pyramid should be watching these proceedings closely and asking themselves one question: could this happen here, and do we have the structures in place to prevent it?\n\nMaddy Cusack gave **six years** of her life to Sheffield United. She deserved a workplace that protected her. Whatever the inquest ultimately concludes, her testimony, spoken through the voice of someone who loved her, demands that the women's game does better. Not as an aspiration. As an obligation.\n\n> \"She was the most committed person I ever met in football. She gave everything to that club.\" — Grace Riglar, as described in her testimony at Chesterfield coroner's court.","\u002Farticles\u002Fmaddy-cusack-inquest-duty-of-care-womens-football",[100,101,102,103,85,104,105,106,107,108],"analysis","basketball","cricket","f1","general","golf","mma","long-reads","tennis",[110,122,135],{"id":111,"stem":111,"path":112,"title":113,"category":85,"badge":114,"badgeType":115,"author":87,"authorRole":116,"authorInitials":117,"date":118,"readTime":90,"image":119,"imageAlt":113,"tags":120,"excerpt":121},"wilde-cardiff-ospreys-playmaker-rivalry","\u002Farticles\u002Fwilde-cardiff-ospreys-playmaker-rivalry","Wilde Card: Ospreys Pin Hopes on Cardiff's Playmaking Prodigy","Transfers","tag","SportPulse Contributor","ER","2026-07-17 00:45:45","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fwilde-cardiff-ospreys-playmaker-rivalry.webp","United Rugby Championship, Welsh Rugby, Pro14","Cardiff sanction surprise move for promising playmaker Harri Wilde to fierce rivals Ospreys ahead of 2025-26 campaign.",{"id":123,"stem":123,"path":124,"title":125,"category":85,"badge":86,"badgeType":126,"author":127,"authorRole":128,"authorInitials":129,"date":130,"readTime":131,"image":132,"imageAlt":125,"tags":133,"excerpt":134},"o-reilly-vs-messi-england-argentina-world-cup-semi-final","\u002Farticles\u002Fo-reilly-vs-messi-england-argentina-world-cup-semi-final","O'Reilly's Date With Destiny: Defending Messi on Football's Grandest Stage","category","James Chen","Senior Football Analyst","JC","2026-07-13 20:46:06","7 min read","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fo-reilly-vs-messi-england-argentina-world-cup-semi-final.webp","World Cup, Premier League","England's young left-back Nico O'Reilly faces the ultimate test against Lionel Messi in a World Cup semi-final that defines careers.",{"id":136,"stem":136,"path":137,"title":138,"category":85,"badge":114,"badgeType":115,"author":87,"authorRole":116,"authorInitials":117,"date":139,"readTime":131,"image":140,"imageAlt":138,"tags":141,"excerpt":142},"manchester-city-122m-elliot-anderson-bid-rejected-nottingham-forest","\u002Farticles\u002Fmanchester-city-122m-elliot-anderson-bid-rejected-nottingham-forest","Forest Dig In as City's £122m Pursuit of Anderson Hits a Wall","2026-07-01 12:18:07","https:\u002F\u002Fi.guim.co.uk\u002Fimg\u002Fmedia\u002F3c73e4b414f8e7d986af96dce88f7d2aa6a7bc7b\u002F497_298_2323_1858\u002Fmaster\u002F2323.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=f418896d063fa446879cedb8ae756677","Premier League, Transfers","Nottingham Forest reject City's £122m bid for Anderson, demanding a British record £125m guaranteed fee."]