U.S. Soccer investigation reveals Danielle Reyna’s threat to Earnie Stewart on Gregg Berhalter

The U.S. Soccer Federation finally released the report on the independent investigation into the Reyna-Berhalter scandal on Monday, revealing new details about what was said that caused the controversy.

Through interviews with people involved in and connected to the scandal, the law firm of Alston & Bird confirmed that Danielle Reyna — the mother of U.S. men’s World Cup team star Gio Reyna — told then-sporting director Earnie Stewart in a phone call on Dec. 11 that U.S. men’s coach Gregg Berhalter “beat the living [expletive] out of” his then-girlfriend and future wife Rosalind Santana (now Rosalind Berhalter) in an alcohol-fueled incident on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus.

The report said Stewart told investigators that Danielle Reyna and her husband, former U.S. star Claudio Reyna, “were not intending to make this information public,” but “they were thinking about starting to spread the story to others privately.”

Stewart then told the Reynas that he would need to report the information to colleagues at U.S. Soccer, and told investigators that the Reynas “did not seem shocked to hear” that news, and they “did not walk back the allegation, nor did they ask him not to report it.”

Stewart also told the investigators it was his personal belief that “the Reynas disclosed the allegation to him so that U.S. Soccer would not hire Mr. Berhalter for another term.”

Soon after hanging up the phone, Stewart called U.S. Soccer senior counsel Alison Kocoras. He also reported the incident to CEO JT Batson and Karen Leetzow.

» READ MORE: U.S. Soccer investigation shows Claudio Reyna’s history of interference and complaints over Gio Reyna

When Gregg Berhalter spoke with the investigators, he confirmed the details of the intimate partner violence incident, as he did in a public statement on Jan. 3. He also said he reported the incident to then-UNC head men’s soccer coach Elmar Bolowich, “sought counseling about the incident, and, of his own accord, decided to do community service at a women’s teenage correctional facility in Durham.”

Berhalter also acknowledged that many people knew about the incident on the UNC campus at the time.

Rosalind Berhalter further confirmed the incident, and reported it to longtime — and still — Tar Heels women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance. She told investigators that “there was not a single physical fight or any improper contact” with Gregg since then.

Bolowich told investigators that he and Dorrance spoke at the time.

“Dorrance told him that he appreciated that Mr. Berhalter came in, reported the incident, and didn’t try to cover it up,” the investigators wrote, and “Bolowich told us that the incident did not trigger any discipline from the coaches, any disciplinary reports to others at UNC, or any police report.”

While Dorrance spoke to Bolowich at the time, he refused to be interviewed by investigators.

The report said Dorrance told them that “this issue is a personal one that should be resolved within the families, without judgment,” that he “won’t contribute to something in the public eye,” and that the investigators “did not convince him of the need for the conversation.”

» READ MORE: Claudio and Danielle Reyna, Gio’s parents, admit to disclosing incident to U.S. Soccer concerning Gregg Berhalter

The investigators said they made “several attempts” to reach Danielle Reyna before speaking with her on Dec. 29. The report says of those conversations:

At the start of the first phone conversation, Mrs. Reyna made clear that she did not want to speak with us. We asked her if she and Mr. Reyna had a phone conversation with Mr. Stewart on December 11th at 7:28 p.m. In response, Mrs. Reyna told us, “I will not confirm anything.” She said she would not get involved because, as she explained, “I have cleaned my mind.”

We asked Mrs. Reyna again if she had a phone call with Mr. Stewart in December to make a report about Mr. Berhalter. She told us: “I’m not saying I did that. I am not saying anything. I won’t confirm or deny that I made that allegation to Earnie.” We asked her if she was on the phone with Mr. Stewart in December, and she said, “I deny we were on a phone call.”

We asked, then, if she was denying that she and Mr. Reyna had a phone call with Mr. Stewart, and she said, “Yes, I am denying this whole thing.” She then told us that she didn’t speak to Mr. Stewart about anything; that she did not remember; and that there is nothing else she could share with us. She closed by telling us that she had nothing else to say, and that “if you want to close it, you can close it.” The call ended.

Very shortly after the first call ended, Mrs. Reyna called back. She began the second call by saying, “I did say it,” in reference to the call with Mr. Stewart. She explained that she had a phone conversation with Mr. Stewart and told him that “there was an incident our freshman year I had to deal with” involving Mr. and Mrs. Berhalter. We asked for details about the incident.

She said: “There was a physical fight. I wasn’t there. I didn’t observe the fight.” She confirmed the fight was “between Gregg and his wife.” When we asked what actually happened, she said, “I didn’t observe it.” She explained that she had talked about it with Mrs. Berhalter when it happened, “but I don’t know who hit whom. I was told there was a fight — that was it.”

Reyna also confirmed that no police report was filed on the incident.

She admitted to the investigators that she was “in a very upset state” when she spoke to Stewart, as she disagreed with Gregg Berhalter’s decision to limit her son’s playing time at last fall’s World Cup.

The investigators then revealed reporting from a source whose name was redacted to preserve that person’s security: Danielle Reyna told the person “something along the lines of, ‘Once this tournament is over, I can make one phone call and give one interview, and his cool sneakers and bounce passes will be gone.’”

That was a reference to elements of Gregg Berhalter’s fashion sense and sideline demeanor, which often went viral on social media during his tenure.

The investigators also said that Claudio Reyna told then-U.S. men’s team general manager Brian McBride: “[Y]ou guys don’t even know what we know about Gregg.”

» READ MORE: Earnie Stewart and Brian McBride leave U.S. Soccer, giving the men's national team a 'clean canvas'

The investigators said Claudio Reyna refused to be interviewed. His attorneys told the Washington Post later Monday that he tried multiple times to arrange to provide information and to answer any/all questions and allegations.”

The investigation report said one of Reyna’s attorneys contacted the investigators on Jan. 12 to try to negotiate a deal, but after multiple rounds of negotiations, no deal was reached.

The investigators interviewed multiple other members of the Berhalter family, including Gregg’s brother Jay, U.S. Soccer’s former chief commercial officer. Jay was involved in hiring Stewart, who hired Berhalter — and U.S. Soccer has long said Jay had no involvement in Gregg’s hiring.

Jay Berhalter told investigators that Gregg called him the day after the 1992 incident. As far as anyone outside the investigation has been able to tell, the incident never came up when Gregg Berhalter was interviewed for the U.S. manager job.

The investigators said that Gregg Berhalter went through two background checks: one in 2018 when he was a candidate to be hired, and another in 2020 as per U.S. Soccer rules requiring background checks of “all covered individuals” under U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee policy.

The investigators said those checks “had a scope of lifetime for reportable felonies and offenses involving a sexual nature or harm to a minor, and a scope of seven to ten years for misdemeanors.”

» READ MORE: With USMNT coaching contract in the balance, Gregg Berhalter speaks on Reyna situation, investigation

They also said Berhalter completed “voluntary disclosure questionnaires” regarding any past felony convictions or charges, “convictions or pending charges of ‘any lesser crime[s] involving force or threat of force against a person,’” and “convictions or pending charges ‘of a lesser crime involving harm to a minor.’”

Berhalter answered no to all of them, and because there had been no charges, the investigators said “we have no reason to believe Mr. Berhalter’s answers were inaccurate, incomplete, or untruthful.”

The investigators added that North Carolina’s state statute of limitations for misdemeanors of this kind is two years.

A U.S. Soccer spokesperson told The Inquirer that Jay Berhalter also was not required to disclose the old incident at the time Gregg was hired.

Though the investigators concluded that the 1992 incident was “unlawful and improper,” they say Gregg Berhalter did not violate any U.S. Soccer policies, and said Stewart “satisfied his reporting obligation” after hearing of the incident.

U.S. Soccer said in a statement that the investigation “identifies a need to revisit U.S. Soccer’s policies concerning appropriate parental conduct and communications with staff at the national team level. We will be updating those policies as we continue to work to ensure safe environments for all participants in our game.”

Stewart stepped down from U.S. Soccer on Feb. 15 to return to the Netherlands, where his family is based, to become director of football at major Dutch club PSV Eindhoven. The process of hiring his successor is ongoing, and that person will hire Berhalter’s successor as U.S. manager to head toward the 2026 World Cup on home soil.

Berhalter’s contract expired at the end of 2022, and he is not currently employed by U.S. Soccer. But he “remains a candidate” to get the job again, the governing body said, ”given the investigators’ conclusion that there is no legal impediment to employing him.”

» READ MORE: Union sporting director Ernst Tanner turned down U.S. Soccer, but it wasn’t an insult