The mother of Maddy Cusack told an inquest it is too difficult for women footballers to report grievances, for fear of being blacklisted, and said her daughter would still be alive if “her nemesis” Jonathan Morgan had not been appointed as Sheffield United’s manager.
Deborah Cusack said Morgan, who is scheduled to give evidence at Cusack’s inquest on Monday, made her daughter “feel as if she had to give up football”, prior to her being found dead at the family’s home in Derbyshire on 20 September 2023. Thursday’s hearing also heard there had been an “industrial-scale” loss of players’ sensitive medical data involving the records-keeping system used for women’s footballers at multiple clubs, including missing records for Cusack. The club’s doctor at the time, Subhashis Basu, admitted that he had failed to adequately report the data breach.
