The Football Association has opened a formal investigation into the circumstances surrounding death of Maddy Cusack and her family’s complaint about Jonathan Morgan, the manager of Sheffield United’s women’s team.
Cusack, the team’s longest-serving player, was found at her parents’ house in Derbyshire on September 20 last year. Her family say her working relationship with Morgan caused her mental health to suffer and that was a contributory factor in the 27-year-old taking her own life.
Morgan has robustly denied any wrongdoing and maintained from the start that he had a normal manager-player relationship with Cusack and had never done anything to make her feel he disliked her.
He was exonerated by an external inquiry, commissioned by the club, that was carried out by a former superintendent from Northumbria police, Dennis Shotton, on behalf of Safecall, a Sunderland-based company dealing with whistleblowing matters.
Shotton’s inquiry concluded there was no evidence of wrongdoing. However, Stephen Bettis, United’s chief executive, acknowledged in a letter to Cusack’s family that Morgan had “divided opinion” among the people who were interviewed as part of the process. Some found him supportive and caring. Others saw him as “isolating, quite authoritative and…
