Teen Soccer Phenom Wins a Shot at Women’s Professional League

A 15-year-old athletic prodigy won the right to compete for a spot in the National Women’s Soccer League, persuading a federal judge in Oregon that the league has likely violated antitrust laws by enforcing a minimum age while its counterpart for men, Major League Soccer, lets teenagers play.

“The only thing currently standing between plaintiff and her aspiration to be a professional soccer player in this country is her gender,” Judge Karin J. Immergut wrote, saying the league couldn’t justify “treating young women who want an opportunity to play professional soccer differently than young men.”

The preliminary ruling Monday clears the way for Olivia Moultrie, who already practices and scrimmages with the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, to join the league—if any team will have her—while her case proceeds in court. It comes about a week after the season’s May 15 start date.

The lawsuit, filed May 4 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, accuses the 10-team league of flouting antitrust laws and international norms by preventing its teams from signing Moultrie, who began preparing to play professionally at age 13.

Moultrie would be eligible to play in MLS if she were male and “in France if she were French,” the suit says. The policy is allegedly harming her long-term career prospects by depriving her of professional seasoning.

The NWLS has countered that the rule is shielded from antitrust scrutiny by the league’s ongoing collective bargaining talks with its players’ association.

Immergut rejected one version of that argument May 19, in advance of a hearing on Moultrie’s request for a temporary restraining order.

She sided with Moultrie again Monday, ordering the league to let her sign a contract, if she is offered one, pending further litigation.

Moultrie “presented persuasive evidence that each day that passes with the age rule in place represents a missed opportunity for her,” especially with the approach of the Summer Olympics, which “will open up roster spots” and increase her chances of “meaningful playing time,” the judge wrote.

She dismissed the idea that the NWSL is incapable of committing antitrust violations because it’s a single corporate entity that can’t conspire with itself. What matters is that “the member teams of the NWSL are competitors in the market for players,” Immergut said.

Moreover, “the merits clearly favor” Moultrie, she wrote. “Plaintiff is injured by being excluded from the market, competition in the market is injured by the exclusion of otherwise qualified players, and the NWSL and its members have pooled their market power.”

If talks with the players’ association result in a collectively bargained version of the age minimum, Moultrie concedes she’ll have no basis for challenging it, Immergut noted. But for now she can play, the judge said.

Moultrie is represented by Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP, Leonard B. Simon of San Diego, and Gustafson Gluek PLLC. The NWSL is represented by Latham & Watkins LLP and the Angeli Law Group LLC.

The case is O.M. v. Nat’l Women’s Soccer League, D. Or., No. 21-cv-683, 5/24/21.