Head coach Albertin Montoya will continue to lead the Bay FC while they are preparing for their first match of the NWSL season on March 15, although Montoya was the survey of the driving of the club’s coaches.
At least two official complaints had been filed against Montoya in 2024, accusing him of having favored a toxic workplace and intimidation. Eight players of the 2024 season, the inaugural campaign of Bay, are no longer in the team due to the behavior of Montoya, according to TIl San Francisco Chronicle. The League announced that the investigation by third parties independent shortly after the publication of the Chronicle investigation report.
“He is currently a head coach,” a spokesperson said on an interview with the CEO of Bay, Brady Stewart, and COO Jen Millet in New York on Friday. “We are going through the investigation and we will do what we have to do. We don’t have timing on it.”
According to reports from the chronicle, the first complaint against Montoya was filed during the summer and reached property as well as other club leaders. The second was made after the conclusion of the 2024 season through the NWSL anonymous reporting mechanisms.
Stewart confirmed that she had seen the first complaint and supported the report of the chronicle that the club hired a third to investigate the complaint. Stewart said there was “no evidence” of the allegation of intimidation filed against Montoya and, questioned about his current employment status, described the deep cause of the complaint as a communication problem.
“I think it is important to note that these problems that have been raised are all linked to communication challenges,” said Stewart. “Of course, the League examines this, as you saw (Friday) morning, and we will cooperate absolutely with the League and support all the recommendations of the League.”
The player who filed this complaint “felt targeted by personal comments led by Montoya to her during examination meetings” and “began to undergo anxiety attacks at the idea of going to training”, according to the chronicle.
Instead of any obvious disciplinary action, Bay instead “has rather provided (coaches staff} with resources to improve” their communication skills, said Stewart, and resources included executive coaching and expertise in individual interactions.
Stewart said they had only learned the second complaint this week after the Chronicle had contacted the club to comment and said the club did not have access to the reports submitted via the NWSL.
The investigation into Montoya’s conduct comes just a week after Graeme Abel, a former assistant coach of the American national team, resigned from his post as director of the team scouting. Abel was hired a week earlier, but the announcement of his job drew attention to the allegations of abuse against him while he was a women’s football coach at the University of Oregon. Oregonian published a report on the subject in April 2024 In which Abel was accused of “launching objects, severe language and threats to reject (the players) of the team or to revoke their scholarship”.
The allegations against Montoya and Abel forced questions about the hiring and safety practices of Bay players, and potentially those imposed by the NWSL. Bay officials have chosen not to answer a question of whether Oregonian’s report arose during the process that led the club to use Abel, but Stewart defended its processes.
“What I would say is that Albertin has a 30 -year story in this sport,” said Stewart to defend club hiring practices. “I think we can say who speaks of itself. I would also say that we are based with the ideal being a club centered on players, and, frankly, our culture and our values say that there is no room for bad behavior within our club. We also follow all the mandates and process of the League for the T, if not more, so I will say that we will absolutely continue to do it.”
Apart from reports, neither Stewart nor Millet said they had heard complaints from Montoya driving players, something they attributed to their roles at the end of club affairs, as well as geography. Their offices are in San Francisco, while the players trained and played in San Jose during the 2024 season.
The leaders said they were unable to describe the next stages of the club because they only learn the second complaint against Montoya earlier in the week, but that the club plans to cooperate fully with the NWSL investigation.
Montoya’s ability to continue his work in the middle of an investigation is different from other NWSL coaches who have been faced with disciplinary measures from an account on the Champion October.
For their part, the NWSL commissioner, Jessica Berman, supported the own league processes shortly after confirming that a survey on Bay coach staff was underway.
“We remain concentrated and are very confident in the system and the process that we have implemented by leaving the joint investigation and all that we have agreed with the prosecutors general is in place and is in progress and implemented and, in many ways, confirmed all the systemic reform that we have made by ourselves and in partnership with the association of players”, the commissioner of the NWSL, Jessica Bertain earlier in a press conference.
