Women’s pro soccer team owner faces players’ union grievance

The tone of the e-mails in the grievance is consistent with Borislow’s language in his public comments during the season. In an interview with the Web site allwhitekit.com, he compared the league to “infidels” and “organized crime.”

In an interview with the Miami Herald, he said: “I refuse to be a zombie and do things just because the league says.”

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The e-mails repeatedly threaten the players’ careers. After a 2-1 loss at Boston in June, the players were told: “You may blame your lack of effort and heart on me, but I will not be the one who suffers the consequences. Why, because it will be you who will not be playing professional soccer ever again in your life. That chapter in your life is about to be closed.”

The league was also targeted in that e-mail: “The refs are bad, the coaches and owners and league officials are clueless and nobody knows if you will be around next year. … Everybody is responsible including the players for making a good thing and turning it into shit.”

It went on to say that, when the national team players return from the World Cup, “there will be players never playing pro soccer again. … I have been such a poor teacher and couldn’t get the thing that meant the most to me and that is I help teach you how to be successful at whatever you want to do in life. I did the opposite and helped create some even bigger losers.”

The e-mails also contained playing advice and criticism. In May, the team was told “the young players were completely punked off the ball, let their players receive the ball with ease and basically sucked. Although you may have skill, you don’t have what the living legends [a reference to Wambach and other national team players] have and your short on heart. Before someone punks me and pushes me off the ball, they would find a foot up their ass. They would know what I think about their mother and the rest of their family.”

Following a 3-1 loss at Philadelphia in June, the second defeat in a week to the Independence by a combined 9-1, an e-mail said: “With this lose [sic], the players have lost their tweeting privileges. Anybody who violates this will be terminated and not paid.”

He then informed the players that they must submit to fitness tests, “and whomever fails will have two-a-days [practices]” over 12 days. “If you think this is unfair or wrong, stay home and cry on your parents’ shoulders. … If you don’t work and dedicate yourselves to something in your life, you will be losers your whole life. … You’re a good group of young women, if I can’t get through to a few of you, I will be very disappointed. Worse than that, if I am ineffective in helping to make a few model citizens, I won’t be here next year. Maybe this is the reason why women’s pro soccer will never make it.”

In May, players were criticized for leaving a postgame function early. “I almost feel that some of you are socially and family inept,” the e-mail said.

Other teams were targeted in the e-mails. About Atlanta, one read: “Let’s crush this low paid ghetto team this weekend and show that paying your team in food stamps isn’t the right solution either.” (Last-place Atlanta’s payroll is much smaller than magicJack’s.)

The e-mails spared the magicJack’s World Cup players from criticism and set them as an example to others. “They come off the field in five pieces, feel good about themselves and want to do it all over again the next day if need be. … The fact that I have to tell you this week in and out tells me we have some losers on the team.”

In one e-mail, disdain for the media is shared.

“The league are a bunch of idiots who think that it is OK for the press to lie and say negative things, and still cater to them. … The way I treat the league and the media is to make sure they stay off your backs. I will teach both of these groups to treat us with respect or stay the hell away.”

Later in that e-mail, this line appears: “I don't like most people. It’s just a fact and that’s the way it is.”