Congress Cheers As SafeSport’s Conflict Of Interest Grows Deeper

Congress set up the US Center for SafeSport in order to independently investigate sexual abuse throughout the Olympic sports world. But there were multiple flaws, designed almost to fail.

Rather than directly fund SafeSport, Congress authorized grants to help support it. However, none of that money can be used to hire more investigators, SafeSports biggest need. At one point, investigators were working 19 cases at once, nearly one and a half times as high as the general recommendation for caseworkers in state-provided children’s services. In order to get money to do this, SafeSport would have to go to the Olympic committees, the exact groups they were supposed to be investigating. So really the only way they can get funding is essentially sanctioned bribery.

After USA Gymnastics was rocked by allegations of sexual assault, Congress has done very little to act. No money was directly given to SafeSport and instead, they were pointed to bribery. The budget for education, intended to prevent future abuse, is just $1.5 million and the overall budget is only $4.6 million.

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For instance, the anti-doping USADA had a budget of $20 million. Sexual assault is a much more serious issue than the sanctity of a sport. SafeSport is set up to fail. How can an organization whose chief operating officer Malia Arrington once said in a deposition that she had no authority to make USA Taekwondo ban a coach despite evidence of sexual abuse ever impact sexual abuse? And how can they do so with a complete lack of funding that they need?

Rather than address this, members of Congress applauded with the US Olympic Committee said they’d fix the SafeSport funding issue by digging deeper into their pockets and deepening the conflict of interest.  Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley announced the move, saying, “The U.S. Olympic Committee’s plan to provide additional resources to the Center for SafeSport demonstrates that it is taking claims of abuse and misconduct more seriously.” It doesn’t. All it does is show a deepening conflict of interest.