FC Kansas City Catch-All Thread

Need to replace creativity in midfield from Holiday loss.

 

Not convinced there exactly is a way.

 

My daughter was super excited about the Leroux signing. I love how these women are seen as role models by young girls and how generally accessible and nice the women are to the youth players after games.

FCKC lost a major contributor from of each line (Rodriguez, Holiday and LePeilbet). Replacing them all will be difficult, especially Holiday. LeRoux might (might) replace the scoring from Rodriguez, but Holiday created so many chances.

 

They lost 2 on the back line, they also lost Leigh Ann Brown.

 

Ah yes, I forgot about Leigh Ann. That's both outside backs and both players that were US national team quality. Those are big losses.

 

so about that Leroux trade.

Surprise! My plans have changed for this summer. @Ddwyer14 and I are so excited to announce... pic.twitter.com/99knKtCvTO

— Sydney Leroux (@sydneyleroux) January 26, 2016

 

Managing a woman's roster has got to be so much harder because of this and because many retire early.

Wonder if she knew during contact negotiations.

 

Don't forget about Becca Moros being traded as well. Sauerbrunn is the only starter left on the backline.

 

Everything I've seen is she is sitting out this season

 

And with Zika virus running unchecked, I'd be surprised if she traveled to Brazil this summer even as a spectator for the Olympics.

 

I don't think you'd want to play a contact sport while any amount of pregnant. There's too much risk of taking a knee or elbow in a bad spot.

 

fckc has to be pumped about that trade now.

 

With her being due in September plenty of people have asked the question of when she knew and if she knew when the trade went down.

 

Not sure what to think about this. It seems kind of shady if they knew and didn't say anything.

 

No shame to any female athlete for not disclosing to a Club whether they are pregnant/trying/thinking about becoming/only a few weeks pregnant and intentionally NOT telling anyone due to Obstet's advice/etc.

But like, that's just my opinion, man.

Edit: in fact, I'd even take it a step further. If there is a Union in women's soccer, it needs to have bylaws which restrict women from disclosing to clubs matters related to pregnancy. Everyone plays it blind. Nobody gets an advantage or disadvantage trading off of the insider information of the reproductive goals of women-of-child-bearing-potential. And, perhaps most important, clubs don't get to leverage that sort of stuff either.

 

I get what you are saying, and I think everyone should be on a level playing field in terms of information.

I'm just struggling with the part where you are a professional athlete that has signed a contract to play for a club for a certain amount of money and then you have a situation where you are causing yourself to not be available to play. It would be like if a male athlete injured themselves on purpose. It isn't quite the same thing, but it is the closest thing I could think of with my limited mental faculties at this hour.

I support the right of women to choose what to do with their bodies and their reproductive rights, but if you signed a professional contract to play a game and then you have made choices that will not allow you to fulfill your side of the contract is that an ok thing to do?

 

I hear ya. In my opinion, it's an intrinsic component of women's professional sports. And, to the effect that one argues that it negatively impacts a persons contractual duty to perform, I don't think a female athlete should or can be imposed with any duty to not get pregnant. With no breach of a duty, there's no breach of contract. Any Pro Womens' league (in the US) would be fooling itself to try and impose such a duty. Put another way, I don't see human reproduction, however untimely, as a reasonable "cause" of one's inability to perform. Last, to the extent that any women's pro league wants to argue 'surprise' that one of its employees becomes pregnant, it's a loser argument.

 

It's super illegal to take a woman's pregnancy, potential future pregnancy, or family situation in general into consideration when making hiring decisions. Professional soccer isn't exempt from discrimination laws just because the length of time a pregnancy might impact an employee is longer than a typical desk job. If FCKC is worried about Sydney "earning" her salary, they can give her modified duties, just like any other employer when an employee's pregnancy reaches a point where she requires accommodation (think female police officers who become pregnant and move to desk duty until they come back from maternity leave). She can certainly still participate in most training that doesn't involve balls flying at her abdomen, and she can still do publicity work, which still has significant value to the team. Hell, put her on a phone to potential customers and have her try to drum up ticket sales.

I'm a 28-year-old woman, and two years ago was on the hunt for a new job. I was told repeatedly, from many different sources, NOT to mention anything about my family situation in interviews, and that if an employer asked if I had children or planned to have children, I should decline to answer as it is illegal for them to ask. Don't mention a boyfriend, definitely don't mention a fiance or husband or desire to have kids some day or cute anecdotes about current children or concerns about aging parents. These things aren't supposed to be used in hiring decisions, but once the cat's out of the bag, it would be hard to prove that the employer improperly hired that other person over me because they figured I'd miss a few months of work by going and getting knocked up.

And honestly, if this kid is due in September, it's entirely possible Sydney didn't know she was pregnant when the trade took place. Conception date would've been mid-December, but she likely didn't miss a period until late December or early January. Give her a week or two to realize she's missed her period, take a home pregnancy test, schedule a doctor's appointment, receive confirmation....she very well might've not found out until after the trade was in process or complete.

 

I think the concern has much less to do with the employer side and more the employee side. I'm just trying to think of other circumstances where it would be considered acceptable to (assuming she did know before the negotiations went down, which I'm guessing is unlikely, so this is all a bit moot) accept a new position knowing but not disclosing that you aren't going to work at the very least anywhere near the capacity they are expecting of you. Roundabout sentence, but you know what I mean. I guess it's because I see a position as less of a contract with your employer and more with your fellow employees.

 

If it were a permanent thing, sure, that would be unethical. If you did a Skype interview for a construction job and never revealed that you were confined to a wheelchair, that would be a serious problem and a legitimate reason for the job offer to be rescinded. But pregnancy is a temporary thing, and employers and coworkers need to accept the fact that sometimes, employees will need accommodations or will miss work, sometimes for extended periods of time. I covered the work for our office manager when she went on maternity leave a year and a half ago, and she covered for me when I missed several weeks of work for the illness and death of my dad last October.

For a soccer team specifically, there's a reason you have 20+ people on a roster, and not just your starting 11+3 subs. Players are going to miss games for injuries, but also for things like illness or family issues. I doubt any of Sydney's coworkers are upset at all that she's going to miss one season of games any more than they would be if she had to miss a season due to injury. If anything, it just gives another player a shot at more playing time, which is both fun, and good for those players' careers.

Outside soccer, I can understand on a micro-level that it might be annoying within one business for the rest of the employees to have to cover the work missed by a pregnant woman. But on a macro level, if you allow discrimination against pregnant women, it would cause a whole host of issues for society in general. If pregnant women are discouraged from seeking out and accepting jobs they are otherwise qualified for due to the temporary situation of their pregnancy, how are they supposed to support themselves and their children? If a woman gets pregnant, and two months later, loses her job, is she just supposed to remain unemployed and have no income until she recovers from the birth of her child, because it might inconvenience the coworkers at her new job? Even if the father of the child is a good guy who sticks around, it's unlikely his individual salary is sufficient to pay for himself, his wife/partner, AND a child. Most women don't have a Dom Dwyer-level baby-daddy making six figures who could pay the bills if she was unemployed for several months. If the dad's a bum, and she can't get a job, she's stuck begging for charity, or relying on government programs (which we as a country don't seem terribly fond of), or resorting to crime if those don't keep her fed and housed.

 

Then what if said worker completed the skype interview not revealing that he has a broken leg and can't do manual labor for a number of months? That seems a more appropriate analogy.

And I'm in no way advocating for restrictions on women and pregnancy and all that. Don't hear that in my words, please. It must be a ridiculous tightrope to walk for an applicant as to how to breach that subject. Oo, bad pun. Sorry.

 

In that case, I'm not sure. Legally, person-with-a-broken-leg isn't protected from discrimination like women (and pregnant women) are, so it may be permissible to rescind the job offer or fire the employee right away. From an ethics standpoint for the employee, I still feel like being required or encouraged to disclose something like that at a job interview would be problematic. If all your job training and experience are in a manual labor field so you won't be qualified for a decent paying desk job, and you happen to be unemployed with a broken leg, and you know revealing that broken leg to potential employers will likely prevent you from being hired, are you just supposed to accept being unemployed and without an income for months?

Employers SHOULD have protocol on the books for dealing with workers who need to be absent or need accommodation, and those protocols should cover brand new employees the same as veteran employees. If the employer can't handle an employee with a broken leg, that's a failure on them to think ahead and plan. What if the employee was fine when interviewed, but broke her leg on the way into work the first day? There's not really any difference to the employer in such a situation. And what if the employee is really great and will bring a lot of value to your company in the long-run? Do you just take a pass on that person because it will take a couple of months to get full use of her services?

But then, I lean socialist and pretty much always side with labor over business when businesses cry about having to accommodate the human-ness of their employees, so that last part might be some bias of mine...

No problem. This is sort of a weird situation because there aren't many other jobs where pregnancy actually has an effect on a woman's ability to do all her regular tasks. Probably military jobs that involve combat, and police work....but even manual labor jobs can still be done by pregnant women up until the last couple of months. It's not nearly the debilitating "condition" a lot of people think it is.

 

Excellent post. Most people do tend to think on behalf of the employer and how they should handle this. I'm just wondering on behalf of Syd and what options she actually has in this situation. Sticky as hell, seriously. Handling soccer players with standard long term injuries and their contracts has been complex enough. Oh well, water under the bridge already.