September 15 – A report commissioned by the Slovenian FA (NZS) has largely absolved former women’s national team coach Borut Jarc (pictured) from a series of allegations after an open letter by his players detailing the unprofessional and sexist environment during team camps led to his departure.
The Slovenian FA appointed an ‘independent’ committee to assess the accusations against Jarc by the women’s national team and the governing body itself after years of malcontent among the players over sexism, body-shaming, and other forms of discrimination led to an open letter and a threat of boycott if Jarc were to continue as manager of the team.
The 45-page report repeatedly highlighted “a gap in communication” between the coaching staff and the players but cleared Jarc and his coaching staff of the majority of accusations, including allegations of autocratic behaviour.
The report often failed to properly address the accusations.
The verbal abuse the players wrote of was described as “albeit sometimes tinged with vulgarisms, which are clearly not in line with the civilisational norms of respectful of civilised communication, there is no discernible malice.”
The report also found that intrusions into the details of the players’ private lives were not systematic. The report said that there was no “indicative of a systematic (unauthorised) obtaining information from the private sphere of the players.”
The report also stopped short of drawing major conclusions and did not recommend any tangible reform.
“The FA report is offensive to the women’s players,” Boris Snedec, the president of Olimpija Ljubljana, told Insideworldfootball.
“The report justifies the selector’s work. It is very unfortunate that the FA does not define the problem clearly and it bothers me that the commission did not decide on the complaints of the players.”
Following the players’ open letter and media pressure, the Slovenia FA ultimately showed Jarc the door. Next week, Slovenia kick off their Nations League campaign hosting the Czech Republic.
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