Another former San Diego Wave employee has sued the NWSL and the Wave, bringing the number of former employees suing the club and the league for creating an abusive and hostile work environment to six. According to the amended complaint, the woman, who filed as Jane Doe 2, was working for the club when her supervisor began sexually harassing her, including sending her photos of his penis. She lost her job after she refused his advances, the suit said, and he stopped scheduling her for work.
Doe 2 joined five other former employees—all women—in suing the NWSL and the Wave in San Diego Superior Court. The lawsuit asserts more than a dozen civil claims, including disability discrimination, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, and retaliating for engaging in protected activity. Doe 2 is joining the others on six claims: sexual harassment, failure to investigate and prevent discrimination and harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, negligent hiring, and negligence.
Defector Media reached out to the NWSL and the Wave for comment. Neither immediately replied, however this story will be updated if they respond. When Defector reached out to the NWSL and the Wave last year for comment in regard to the earlier version of the complaint, both the club and the league declined to comment on the specifics in the lawsuit.
The amended complaint was filed in late October. According to the document, Doe 2 worked for the Wave as a part-time community ambassador from April 2022 to August 2023. Her supervisor was the same person named by another former employee (Jane Doe 1) as the person who sexually assaulted her.
As an ambassador, Doe 2 could sign up for shifts, but her supervisor made the final decision on when she worked. Less than a month into the job, Doe 2 worked at a home game with her supervisor; they chatted and afterward he asked her out for a drink, the complaint said. She said no. He then asked her if she had Snapchat; she said yes. Soon afterward, her supervisor started Snapchatting her "on a regular basis," the lawsuit said. Doe kept it friendly with him, even though she was not interested in him romantically or sexually, because he was her supervisor.
Over time, the lawsuit said, the messages from her supervisor grew "increasingly inappropriate and uncomfortable." He also would ask her out to bars or his home, the suit said, "so they could 'get to know each other better,'" Doe 2 did her best to sidestep the requests, the suit said, "as politely as possible."
But the advances continued, leading to him "sending multiple photos of himself, including photos of his penis," on Snapchat. The lawsuit called this "quid pro quo sexual harassment."
After declining his advances and not responding to his dick pics, Doe 2 noticed she was being scheduled less, the suit said, so she asked her supervisor about it. He responded by saying there were more ambassadors than available slots. When her supervisor found out Doe 2 was dating someone else, per the complaint, she struggled to get any work at all.
Doe 2 applied for a full-time position with the Wave in February of 2023 after being encouraged by Megan Wakefield, then the club's vice president of people and culture. She saw her supervisor when she came in for the interview and asked him why she was not getting work. He told her it was because, per the complaint, the assignments were "first come, first serve." But Doe 2, the lawsuit said, would respond within minutes of an assignment being posted. She did not get the full-time job.
About six months later, in August, Doe 2 got an email from the Wave’s payroll system asking her to sign termination papers. She forwarded it to people and culture coordinator CJ Solinsky asking why, and Solinsky responded saying that the club deactivated part-time workers who did not sign up for two shifts a month, the lawsuit said. Doe replied that she had tried to sign up for shifts but her supervisor would not schedule her, the suit said. Solinsky said she would reach out to her supervisor about it. Doe 2 never heard back from either of them.
Nearly a year later, in July 2024, Doe 2 told another Wave employee what happened. That person suggested she contact the new vice president of people and culture, because Doe 2's experience "was not unique." (Wakefield left the Wave in 2024.) After Doe 2 came forward, her former supervisor was finally terminated.
(The new version of the lawsuit also slightly adjusts the narrative for another former employee, Victoria Diaz, to clarify she was offered severance while also pressured to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which she refused.)
Wakefield is not being sued, but her name came up several times in the first version of the complaint filed. That 45-page document covered about two years, and said working conditions at the club included racial discrimination against several employees, sexual harassment and retaliation against Doe 1 after she said she was sexually assaulted by a then-Wave employee, and failure to investigate and prevent discrimination against multiple employees. The lawsuit also said the NWSL had received reports as far back as November 2022 saying "directors routinely left [then-club president Jill] Ellis’s office in tears."
Ellis, a huge name in women's soccer after leading the USWNT to back-to-back World Cup wins, had been a part of the expansion team's early marketing of itself as more than just a soccer club. Wakefield, per the lawsuit, was Ellis's wife’s "friend from Jazzercise." The lawsuit also said, after Wakefield left, representatives of the NWSL apologized to San Diego employees and said the new head of HR would be "qualified.”
The Wave also has been investigated twice, and been the subject of complaints to the NWSL as far back as November 2022, per the lawsuit. When former employee Brittany Alvarado spoke about working conditions at the Wave in July, the Wave called her words "inaccurate and defamatory," and the NWSL responded by issuing a statement touting the quality of its investigations. But the lawsuit called those investigations "biased and discounted by the league, leading to a failure to address systemic issues within the organization."
Ellis went on to sue Alvarado for defamation and intentional interference with contractual relations. Alvarado recently responded with a motion asking a judge to strike Ellis's lawsuit, saying her statement was protected speech on a matter of public concern. Ellis has since left Wave FC to join FIFA in a newly created role: chief football officer. The press release said the new job "underscores FIFA’s commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible global football community, ensuring that football remains a sport for all."
The complaint in full can be read here.
