So this is what equality looks like. Finally, sports writers care enough about women’s sports to bother digging into a female athlete’s personal life and find out she’s a mess: married to a man once accused of hitting her, brawling with her own family members, and getting belligerent with cops when they pull over her husband for driving drunk in the team van.

But damn can Hope Solo play—and that’s why she should play. For the same reasons Allen Iverson played, Ray Lewis played, and Ty Cobb played. Don’t let Roger Goodell’s optics-oriented attempts at turning football (a sport based on beating people up) into a morality play disguise the truth. Players play to win, fans watch teams that win, and only a fool thinks the U.S. Women’s National Team can go all the way without Solo.

But she’s an example for the children! Sure. She’s also an example of great goalkeeping—and of how being amazing at one thing doesn’t automatically make a person any less screwed up off the field. The Brands have no problem letting men market themselves as flawed, dangerous, and difficult. Nike built an entire ad campaign around Charles Barkley, who spat on a little girl, drank before games, and lost $10 million to a gambling problem. All Barkley had to do was stare into the camera and declare “I am not a role model.”

Barkley’s still on TV, and still not a role model. Solo doesn’t have to be one either.

But this was Domestic Violence, and the Brands want to get tough on it! But that’s pretty much where the similarities end between what Solo did and the actions of the person she often gets compared to, Ray Rice.

Kicked off by an ESPN Outside the Lines report that detailed the sordid police report about an unresolved Domestic assault case from last June, which involved a fight with her stepsister and nephew, Solo’s presence on the field has been called into question.

The U.S. Soccer Federation made a misstep in trying to claim a moral high ground, saying it did an investigation that, like any sports organization’s investigation, was brief, cursory, and flawed. That’s no surprise. Goodell convinced football fans that he could do a better version of policing domestic Violence than our court system. So far, he’s given us pithy donations, domestic violence training that its own players say isn’t working, and a celebrity-driven, shadily financed PR campaign that doesn’t provide any services to victims. And football teams still employ fixers to make these “problems” go away before they become public. Why? Because the NFL is entertainment, the Women’s World Cup is entertainment, and the men and women running these shows are just as unqualified to play judge and jury as music label owners or Hollywood studio heads, who should looked to for moral guidance on absolutely nothing.

So go ahead, get mad at U.S. Soccer’s Sunil Gulati for being really bad at faking like he cares about anything beyond fielding the strongest team possible. Get angry at Solo for being, at best, a flawed and unlikeable person. Roll your eyes at talking heads trying to discount Solo’s assault as a distraction, a cue straight from the NFL playbook. When a young girl asks to buy a Solo jersey, by all means say no and explain why.

But don’t get mad over Solo playing. Sports fans long ago learned to accept our male heroes as anything but heroic. It’s time to let our women be the same.

What do you think? Should Hope Solo be allowed to play?

Image from Getty

Filed under: Workplace Affairs Tagged: domestic violence, FIFA, hope solo, public relations, role model, Women's World Cup