Hope Solo, United States Women’s National Team goalkeeper, was suspended for six months from her national soccer team on August 24.  Along with this suspension, a terminated contract was piled on top of that, effective immediately.

US Soccer claims that this suspension only had to do with the fact that she called the Swedish National Team “a bunch of cowards.” But before you jump straight to judging Solo, you need to know beyond what the media’s twisted words have been saying.

Solo had her reasons for calling Sweden cowards, reasons that I believe are beyond justified.

“Sweden dropped back. They didn’t want to open play. They didn’t want to pass the ball around. They didn’t want to play great soccer, entertaining soccer. It was a combative game. A physical game. Exactly what they wanted. Exactly what their game plan was. We had that style of play when Pia was our coach. I think it was very cowardly,” said Solo.

What Hope did was use her first amendment right, her freedom of speech. What did she get for that?

Fired.

Ryan Lochte, Olympic swimmer, lied about being held at gunpoint; what did he get for that?

He got to join Dancing with the Stars.

Many people, including Hope herself, believe that she got fired for more behind-the-scenes issues than just calling a group of people cowards.

Maybe she simply got fired because U.S. Soccer is scared of her.

Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Becky Sauerbrunn, Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe are all pushing for a campaign called “Equal Play, Equal Pay.” They are fighting U.S. Soccer because the women are payed 75 percent less than the men, even though the women bring in more revenue and more people watch the USWNT instead of the USMNT.

Guess who is the biggest voice in this campaign?

Hope Solo.

How bad do you think this campaign looks on U.S. Soccer? It makes them look like they are an unfair and corrupt organization, which they very well may be.

U.S. Soccer may be trying to get rid of Solo for good so they won’t have to worry about a loud voice in this campaign. If they took Solo down, they’d be taking the campaign down with her. Even Solo believes this.

“They’re going to use my comments as an excuse to get rid of me forever so that they don’t have to deal with such a strong voice and opposition to field conditions and playing conditions and pay,” Solo stated during her most recent episode of Keeping Score.

It may be a far fetched idea, but when you take into consideration how strong of a voice Hope has, you may think otherwise.

Fans of Solo have been petitioning to get her suspension reduced and her contract back.

Supporters can use the link below to sign the petition:

www.change.org/p/to-sunil-gulati-shorten-hope-solo-s-suspension-and-give-her-a-new-contract?recruiter