NWSLPA's Meghann Burke calls for ‘bright-line rule' following Savy King's collapse: Full Time

New York Times

16-05-2025

In the wake of the concerning incident that saw Angel City FC defender Savy King collapse in the 74th minute of their clash with the Utah Royals last Friday, the NWSL is reviewing its medical protocols after acknowledging that the match should never have resumed.
'Having reviewed our protocols and how they were implemented, and in listening to feedback from our stakeholders, the Angel City vs. Utah game last Friday night should not have continued,' the league said in a statement. 'The health and well-being of the entire NWSL community remains our top priority, and in any similar situation going forward, the game should and would be abandoned.'
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The NWSL Players Association has been firm in its stance that the match should have been abandoned immediately, and on the latest episode of 'Full Time,' Meg Linehan was joined by NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke. She explained why the league's current policies need urgent reform and the importance of establishing a clear and non-negotiable bright-line rule for future incidents.
A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on the 'Full Time' feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Meg Linehan: Thank you for joining us, Meghann. I know it has been a bit of a heavy week, and we've been doing a lot of reporting on what happened with Angel City's Savy King last weekend. Firstly, I think we've got to frame this as a player health and safety issue, and just put it in the context of what the NWSL Players Association's role is. How are you trying to approach both what happened and what comes next from that health and safety framework?
Meghann Burke: First of all, Savy and her family issued a statement yesterday sharing a really positive update that she's recovering, and she has a really extremely positive prognosis. Our number one priority is Savy, her health, her recovery and supporting her. So certainly in the moment on Friday night and in the ensuing hours, it was about focusing on her getting what she needed. I also just need to say how much we appreciate the Angel City medical staff, the responding EMTs and all the people who were on the field that night, because as we said in our statement yesterday, everything we're learning is that it was conducted with the highest level of competence and care. There was an excellent response, I think they were on the field within under a minute and were able to tend to her right away. That's the first thing, and that is absolutely the highest priority and the most important thing that needs to get done in the right way.
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Secondary to that, of course, is the decision to continue to play. We've taken the last several days to talk to our people and get a sense of how they were doing, and I can say it was very difficult. I think you've already heard players speaking out about that, so our attention then turned to the decision to continue playing and whether that was the right decision. The fact that they continued to play, we feel it was the wrong call, and the game should have been stopped as a human matter. The protocols almost don't matter, and we need to reframe this and think about it in terms of, 'What was the right thing to do?' And the right thing to do was to just stop playing. That's the beginning, middle and end, and that decision needed to be made on Friday night.
That said, in the days that followed, we had a very strong working relationship with league office personnel and the opportunity to meet with them. I won't get into the details of those conversations, other than to say there's been a commitment on their part to share information and help us understand what happened here and what needs to change. But at the end of the day, this decision should have been made on Friday night. Nothing has changed in the days since, so we feel an urgency to call for an immediate change to the protocol that would require the suspension of a match in the event that life-saving measures are used. I want to be clear, we're not talking about a gnarly broken leg, which I know you've had, Meg. We're not even talking about a head-to-head collision or even a bench-clearing. We're talking about the exceedingly rare, hopefully, circumstance where life-saving measures are rendered for one of our own on the field. Whether it's a player, a match official, or a coach, the game and play should stop immediately.
Linehan: Are you encouraged by what you're seeing there that the logistics can come after? And that someone will step in, be the adult in the room and say, 'We'll figure this out later, human life has to come first'.
Burke: We're concerned, candidly. And the reason we're concerned is because this is a decision that needed to be made Friday night, and something happened where that didn't get done. We have four games tomorrow night – we have eight teams playing on a Friday night. And the rest of our teams are playing on Saturday and Sunday. Things move fast in professional sports, and you make snap judgments. Sometimes, if the snap judgment is not the right one, you reflect and say, 'Okay, how do we do it better and differently?' But some of the hand-wringing around this, and not being willing to immediately adopt a very humane and obvious bright-line rule, is the reason we're concerned and why we need a bright-line rule. Now, six days later, we still don't have a clear decision from the league that they would have stopped play if this were to happen again.
Linehan: There's a trust part and an accountability part. Let's start with the accountability part, because I think there is always a difference. We saw this with some of the other things that have happened in the NWSL. There's public accountability, then there's this internal sense of accountability where players have to feel comfortable with what decisions are made. You need that communication, and that communication is, and should look different from what I'm being told and from what fans are being told. So, from an accountability point of view, do you feel like there is a path to figuring out, 'Okay, this is how we're going to move forward from this moment that is really concerning?'
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Burke: I do think there's a path yes, but the concern I have is the lack of decisiveness. This is very clear to me. This is a human issue and is not even a close call, this is very obvious. And to the people who are on the field, this is obvious. And if you put yourself in those shoes, a clear message that 'We should have stopped this game' would be a powerful and cathartic decision right now in this moment. I do believe it can still happen, and you can tell from the decision on our part to issue the statement Wednesday, we did not feel that without more pressure, it's not going to happen.
Linehan: Is there anything else that you think we should be learning from this moment beyond being able to make the right call in that moment?
Burke: First of all, we need to focus on operational integrity. I have no doubt in my mind that every human being who had any role to play whatsoever with what happened on Friday night had the best of intentions. I don't think there was malice or ill will at any point, so I want to be clear about that. But what we're talking about is operational integrity. Having the right people in the right roles, with the right training and the right channels of communication to be able to execute on the things we know are the right thing to do. That's thing one, and I would say that's true across the board, not just in this incident.
The second thing is that we live in a very complicated world right now, and we cannot let basic standards of humanity slip away from us. I'm having a hard time with the idea that there were any countervailing factors or things to consider in this moment that would have outweighed the basic human decency to call off the game. There might have been some other things that were on the table to talk about and figure out later, but that can be figured out later. At the moment, we needed to protect basic human dignity, and the right thing to do was to call off the game. I would cite, and a lot of people have raised the Christian Eriksen example with me.
You talk to those players, and we consulted with FIFA Pro, too. That game carried on two hours later, and Kasper Schmeichel, the son of one of my heroes, Peter Schmeichel, is quoted as saying, 'We had to make the least bad decision. And in hindsight, we shouldn't have played.' The players agree that they shouldn't have played. And in fact, they even said, 'We shouldn't have been consulted because we shouldn't have been forced to make the decision.' This is why we're calling for a bright-line rule, and we remain ready to work with the league to make that happen. I do believe we can get there, but we do feel it's necessary to bring more pressure to bear on that decision.
Linehan: Before I let you go, in terms of what's next, I know there's going to be more conversations between the Players Association and the NWSL in trying to get the protocol changes pushed through. But is there anything else that you think might be discussed?
Burke: We certainly review the league's policies and rules constantly to try to see where some of our paramount priorities, particularly around player safety, are being prioritized. I do want to use this as an opportunity to say we regularly have those conversations with the league. I know, Meg, that you've been in this business for a minute, and a lot has changed over time. One of the big changes is the much more productive relationship between the Players Association and the league, and the opportunity to work on issues like this. And I still think we're going to continue to work on bringing about changes to protocols that were implicated on Friday night.
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However, protocols are only as good as the people who are in the roles to execute them. So I'm focused on whether the league is adequately investing in operationalizing all these things. Not just the competition manual or the operations manual, but the collective bargaining agreement, and making sure the things we've agreed to do are being enforced and complied with. That is where our primary focus lies.
Meg: All right, well Meghann, I definitely appreciate the time and thank you so much for joining us. Obviously again, all of our thoughts are with Savy King and her family, and that health update that Angel City provided probably gave everyone a massive sigh of relief. We really appreciate your time.
Meghann: It really did. Thank you for that, and thank you for thinking of Savy and her family. It's been great to be with you.
You can listen to full episodes of Full Time for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube.
(Top Photo: Jessica Alcheh-Imagn Images)