FIFA confirmed that it is investigating allegations of misconduct within the Zambia women’s national team at the Women’s World Cup.
The Guardian reported Thursday that head coach Bruce Mwape “has been accused of rubbing his hands over the chest of one of his players two days before” the team beat Costa Rica in its final game of the tournament.
According to a source close to the squad, several players saw Mwape rubbing his hands over the chest of one of their teammates last Friday after training. “It’s not appropriate for a coach to be touching a player’s breasts,” said the source.
FIFA said in a statement to ESPN that it received a complaint related to the team and is investigating.
“FIFA takes any allegation of misconduct extremely seriously and has a clear process in place for anyone in football who wants to report an incident,” the statement said. “We can confirm that a complaint has been received in relation to the Zambian women’s national team and this is currently being investigated. We cannot provide further details regarding an ongoing investigation for obvious confidentiality reasons.”
According to Sky Sports, the general secretary for the Football Association of Zambia said the investigation “came as a surprise for us” because it hadn’t received a formal complaint from anyone within the team.
Zambia entered the World Cup with allegations of sexual abuse within the national team program already public. The Football Association of Zambia announced in September that it had referred a sexual abuse investigation to FIFA. Last month, the Guardian reported that Mwape was one of the individuals who was a target of the investigation along with the coach of the U-17 team.
In that Guardian article, an unnamed player on the team said that if Mwape “wants to sleep with someone, you have to say yes.”
“If he [Mwape] wants to sleep with someone, you have to say yes,” one player who did not want to be named told the Guardian. “It’s normal that the coach sleeps with the players in our team.”
One source who knows the players said they had received threats, not from Mwape himself. “They are being threatened with punitive action if they dare say anything about what happened,” the source said. “The federation is turning a blind eye because the women have had good results. It’s their way to show to the public and the authorities success and a good image. But behind the scenes, it’s very ugly.”
The allegations came up at a news conference at the World Cup ahead of the team’s game against Spain. A FIFA representative tried to stop a question from being asked and then Mwape responded when another reporter asked if he should step aside given the “environment” around the team.
“What environment affecting the team in particular? What are you talking about? I would like to know because there is no way I can retire without reason,” Mwape said. “Maybe your reason is because what you are reading from the media or from the press, but the truth of the matter should actually come out, not just on rumors.”
The news conference was ended early after Mwape’s comments.
Zambia entered as the lowest team in FIFA’s rankings. It was eliminated in the group stage of the Women’s World Cup after its first two games. Zambia lost to both Spain and Japan before getting a 3-1 win over Costa Rica.
