Maddy Cusack and players were let down by Sheffield United, inquest told

Sheffield United let Maddy Cusack down and the women’s team’s transition from part-time to full-time status in the summer of 2023 was not “managed in the way that it should have been”, an inquest into Cusack’s death has been told.

Ian McCallum, general manager of the women’s team between February 2023 and the end of the 2022-23 season on a short-term basis, also told the court that the club had been “slightly naive about what needed to be in place” for full-time women’s football and that a “talented group of players deserved better”. McCallum said his frustration at the club’s approach to the women’s game had “played a part” in his decision to leave the role in the summer of 2023.

Lawyers representing the Cusack family, when asking McCallum about written evidence he had submitted before the hearing, asked him to confirm that he had said “the club let people down”, to which he replied: “On some levels, yes,” adding: “The club let a number of people down.” Asked specifically: “Did they let Maddy down on some areas?”, McCallum said: “Yes.” Cusack died on 20 September 2023, aged 27.

Sheffield United announced on 16 February 2023 that McCallum had “taken up the position of women’s team general manager until the end of the 2022-23 season” after the departure of Zoe Johnson, who had moved to become the Brighton women’s and girls’ managing director.

On Tuesday, the court was read part of an email sent by Johnson to Carl Shieber, Sheffield United’s head of football administration, and Vicki Anderson, the club’s head of human resources, during the process that led ultimately to the appointment of Jonathan Morgan as the club’s new manager in February 2023. In that email, Johnson was advising on the managerial candidates: “I know [Morgan] the best out of the three of them and he doesn’t have the greatest reputation in the game but he has a good CV”, before adding that she was “not sure it would be a great fit” but that “he’d certainly be better than the applicants we’d got”.

McCallum, who was involved the process to appoint Morgan, was asked in court what he had been aware of Morgan’s reputation prior to his appointment. He replied: “From what I’d heard, his reputation was that he was strong-minded in what he wanted a football team to do, he wanted to win [and] he was prepared to make difficult decisions to make that happen.” He added: “Away from that I had no more knowledge [of his reputation].”

When being questioned by Morgan – who was representing himself in court – McCallum said he had never witnessed Morgan shout at Cusack, nor did he ever see him mistreat the midfielder, nor did he ever hear him talk negatively about her.

McCallum was also asked by the coroner to clarify an earlier statement he had provided, in which he had said it felt like Sheffield United saw the women’s side going full time as “a box-ticking exercise”, to which McCallum said: “Outwardly, looking in, it probably seemed like the right thing.” He said the “success of the England women’s team probably accelerated” the move, but he was “not sure the resources were in place to do that to the best of its ability”. He said he got the feeling that going full time was something that “needed to happen but was not a ‘want’”.

Asked to name individuals who had given him that impression, McCallum stopped short of doing so and said: “It was a feeling I got from a number of people,” adding, when probed, that it was “various execs – I can’t remember the names off the top of my head”. Senior staff at Sheffield United, including Shieber and the chief executive, Stephen Bettis, are scheduled to give evidence to the inquest on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the court also heard further evidence from Morgan, continuing his evidence session which had lasted for the full duration of the hearing on Monday. Morgan was questioned extensively by the coroner over what he knew of the club’s handbook and the responsibilities for a line manager to report any concerns about an employee’s mental wellbeing to HR. Asked if he had consulted HR about Cusack, Morgan said: “No, because I escalated it up to [Dr Subhashis Basu, the club doctor] who I thought was the right person at the time.”

The club’s head of safeguarding, Cheryl Anderson, told the court that she was not made aware Cusack was struggling with her mental health and that no concerns about Cusack had been raised with her. The inquest resumes on Wednesday.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org