Hotel California FC
Lifetime coaching licenses from US Soccer: this could be heaven or this could be hell. For one coach trying to reclaim his reputation from the US Center for SafeSport, it's hell.
A lifetime of working in sports sounds like a dream to many Americans. For thousands of Americans, though, it’s a lifetime liability that they don’t even realize they are under, one that could destroy their reputation and livelihood on a moment’s notice.
Kurt started playing soccer at age 5, and assumed it would always be a part of his life. Over the last two years, he’s learned that it would always be a part of his life and there is nothing he can do about it.
Kurt (not his real name because of potential litigation) earned a “D” coaching license from the US Soccer Federation (USSF) in 2007. The “D” license is standard for coaching a high school team.
Like most people and their early-career certifications, it receded from his mind and résumé over the nine years he coached. When a long-time friend took her first job as a high school coach in 2022, she didn’t ask to see Kurt’s certification paperwork. She just asked him to come out of his seven-year “retirement” and bring his experience to her staff as a volunteer assistant coach.
He resigned after a few months. The head coach was “having conversations with athletes, at team events, outside of any realm of acceptability” and he didn’t want to be a part of that environment or team culture. About a month later, he and another staff member reported the head coach to the school administration.
The head coach—who had been a friend for years—responded by filing a temporary restraining order against him, which a court quashed at the first hearing.
Because he had been away from coaching for so long, he was only vaguely familiar with the US Center for SafeSport when he received an email from them on September 11, 2023. “A pretty easy day to remember, for two reasons now,” he says. That email informed him that the Center had placed “temporary sanctions” against him based on complaints they had received of “inappropriate behavior.”
None of that made sense to him.
Congress authorized the Center to be the “national safe sport organization” in 2018 in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal at USA Gymnastics.
Congress gave the Center “jurisdiction over the [United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee], each national governing body, and each paralympic sports organization with regard to safeguarding amateur athletes against abuse, including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, in sports.” The Center had free rein—devoid of any public, government, or outside input or review—to “develop training, oversight practices, policies, and procedures to prevent the abuse...of amateur athletes participating in amateur athletic activities through national governing bodies.”
The Center has encouraged and rewarded an expansive view of that mandate.
While pleading for Congress to increase funding to keep up with their growing backlog of thousands of complaints, the Center is diverting resources to investigate—and then often litigate—consensual relationships between adults, verbal harassment by adults in public settings, retaliation by disgruntled parents against one of Larry Nassar’s victims, and complaints against a handful of preteen girls.
Kurt was one of those diversions.
He was not being accused of abuse. The allegations against him included “emotional misconduct” towards the head coach—the one he reported and who lost her restraining order hearing; and “grooming” the players—because he had bought gifts for the entire team with his own money.
As he brought himself up to speed on the US Center for SafeSport, he quickly recognized the overreach. High school sports do not fall under the auspices of the USOPC or USSF—therefore, they are not under the jurisdiction of the US Center for SafeSport.
He learned, though, that the Center’s involvement had nothing to do with the school and everything to do with him. The Center empowers itself to get involved in any situation where the accused “is seeking to be, currently is, or was at the time of any alleged [violation]” a member of a national governing body or a license holder from a national governing body.
That confused him even more.
The Center was created 11 years after he received his “D” license, and one year after he stopped coaching. He hadn’t held a US Soccer membership since 2016. He never consented to any terms and conditions that included the Center’s jurisdiction. He never agreed to abide by or be subject to the SafeSport Code, the 50-page (at the time—now it’s over 70 pages) document through which the Center executes its Congressional mandates. Nor did he take any SafeSport training.
But now, without any hearing or opportunity to respond, he was on the same publicly searchable blacklist—the required-by-law Centralized Disciplinary Database—as Larry Nassar.
As he tried to clear his name, Kurt learned that the 3-day course he took in 2007 conferred upon him a permanent, lifetime license. US Soccer asserted they have no means to rescind it, and that coaches have no ability to resign it.
But even if he could, he would still not be free. There is no statute of limitations under the SafeSport Code.
Whether someone is a member or license holder for 1 day or 40 years, the US Center for SafeSport holds a permanent lien over that span of time.
Any allegation that can be retrofitted into that span could lead to the Center depriving that American of their ability to work or volunteer in sport, to attend their children’s sporting events, or to operate their business. Or it could justify the Center placing their name a few scrolls away from one of the most notorious sex offenders in American history.
Holders of a US Soccer “D” coaching license do not have the protection of a time limit. If they are alive, no matter where life takes them or their career, the US Center for SafeSport has a claim on each new day.
Kurt’s first step toward clearing his name was checking out of the Hotel California of professional licensure. He had to persuade US Soccer to let his license expire before he does.
In August 2025, after much back-and-forth, US Soccer told Kurt that they were unconditionally rescinding his lifetime license. But the rescission was only effective from the day of that decision, not from the day of his first request nor his last days of coaching in 2016.
He immediately notified the US Center for SafeSport that he was no longer under their jurisdiction, and renewed his request to be removed from their “temporary” listing on the Centralized Disciplinary Database. As he expected, the Center shrugged. “The decision by US Soccer to rescind your license does not affect the decision in your prior cases” because they still consider him to have been a member “at the time of [the] alleged Code violation.”
The Center was retaining jurisdiction over 18 years of his life.
Kurt no longer has a lifetime license as a soccer coach. He is not working in sport in any capacity, and has no interest in doing so. His only connection to sport is being on the Centralized Disciplinary Database. Because he had an unwanted, unknown, and now-disputed license then, he can still be punished. US Soccer might let go of his future, but they will not relinquish his past—which mortgages his future to the mercy of the US Center for SafeSport.
Over 11 million Americans are subject to the Center’s jurisdiction. That number will only rise, because the Center never removes anyone from their rolls.
US Soccer’s thousands of “D” licensees are a unique subset. They can quit coaching soccer, leave sport entirely, tear up their US Soccer membership card, burn their license, or stab it with their steely knives. But, they’ll learn, they just can’t kill the beast.
Related:
Soccer blacklist exposed info about teens, pros, and execs (Abuse of Process)
The Cancel-Your-College-Coach Playbook (James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal)
Photo credit: Sonny Abesamis / Flickr, under CC BY 2.0.