Maddy Cusack was left feeling ‘uncomfortable’ after manager Jonathan Morgan ordered her and partner Grace Riglar to disclose their relationship and referred to Riglar as ‘Mrs Cusack’ in front of team-mates.
Riglar, who met and began a non-public relationship with Maddy when she joined Sheffield United at the beginning of the 2022–23 season, has been giving evidence at Chesterfield Coroner’s Court on the second day of the late Sheffield United player’s inquest.
Maddy was found dead at her home in Horsley, Derbyshire, by her father, David Cusack, on 20 September 2023, at the age of 27.
She joined Sheffield United from Leicester City in 2019, having previously worked with Morgan there. He then went on to follow her by becoming the head coach of Sheffield United in February 2023.
Riglar, 29, described how Morgan ordered a team meeting when he joined the club in 2023, during which he asked any players who were in relationships to arrange a separate, private meeting with him.
Asked whether this was usual practice, Riglar said: ‘I don’t think it’s normal in my experience in the club. If there’s ever any issues within a relationship, then the manager might want to get involved if it impacts the football side of things, but Maddy and I were always very professional.’
Sheffield United player Maddy Cusack’s coach had called her a ‘psycho’, an inquest heard
Fellow professional footballer Grace Riglar played for United at the same time as Ms Cusack and was in a relationship with her
As for their meeting with Morgan itself, Riglar said it left Maddy feeling ‘uncomfortable’, particularly as she described her as a ‘very private’ individual.
‘She didn’t want to go to the meeting or have that conversation at all. Especially as he’s a manager and not a friend, it was a bit uncomfortable.
‘From what I can recall, he expressed that he had three rules for players who were in relationships in a team. The only one I can remember was that he said if he was to annoy one of us, then the other one can’t hold a grudge about it.’
Asked whether anyone from Human Resources was present for the meeting, Riglar replied ‘no’ and said that it was ‘just the three of us’.
Riglar, who currently plays for third-tier side Norwich, described how Maddy had also been left feeling uncomfortable when Morgan subsequently referred to her as ‘Mrs Cusack’.
‘She did find it uncomfortable when Jonathan called me Mrs Cusack,’ she said. ‘It was in front of other players and we wanted to keep our relationship very professional. The football side and the relationship side were always very separate.’
Riglar also described how comments allegedly made by Morgan to Maddy about her weight at the end of the 2022–23 season affected her self-esteem.
‘After one session she’d said that Jonathan had made a comment about her fitness or her weight. On the back of that, her eating and exercise habits changed,’ she said. ‘She’d do stuff like not eat any carbs or skip breakfast, go for extra runs after a game; slight tweaks in her habits which probably weren’t the healthiest at the time for her.
‘After those comments she wanted to try and prove him wrong a bit. She was one of the fittest players anyway.’
Morgan, who is representing himself, argued on Tuesday that he had called Maddy ‘fitter’ as opposed to ‘fat’.
As for the claim, which Morgan has vehemently denied, that he had been playing ‘mind games’ with Maddy, Riglar said that ‘no one at the club could understand’ why Maddy was being underused when he first joined, and towards the end of his first season in charge.
‘At the time, no one understood why she wasn’t playing,’ she said. ‘From what she said and what I saw, I’d say it was that he was trying to make – maybe I wouldn’t say mind games – but some kind of point to Maddy that he could do what he wanted because he was the manager.
‘She was used to starting every game, she was an important member of the team. When Jonathan came, she was in and out from the starting team a bit. Her going from starting to being on the bench quite a lot, she saw that as a setback. That impacted her a lot.’
Jonathan Morgan also made comments about Ms Cusack’s weight, the inquest heard
Maddy told Riglar before her death that she wanted to move to Dubai and be a flight attendant
Morgan suggested that this was ‘inconsistent’, saying that he had started Maddy in five of Sheffield United’s nine games at the end of the 2022–23 season and had started her in the first three games of the 2023–24 season – after Riglar had moved to Lewes FC in Brighton.
On Tuesday, Riglar also reflected on a story that Maddy had shared from her time working with Morgan at Leicester City in 2019.
‘She questioned something to Jonathan or the staff about whether they were training too much before a game. She then found out that she was dropped as a consequence of questioning whether they were training too much.
‘They were warming up for the game as normal and, after the game, Jonathan had apparently said he’d heard Maddy say that she was a WSL1 player and she shouldn’t be playing in this team.
‘She said they had a meeting about it afterwards, where Jonathan spoke to her about the comment and why she had said it. Apparently, he said at the end that he knew she had never said anything like that and that he had made the whole thing up.’
As has been heard in a pre-inquest hearing, Maddy had also shared that Morgan had once called her a ‘psycho’.
Going into detail on this, Riglar said: ‘It happened when she was at Leicester. She said they’d played a game against a team where Jonathan was manager and Jonathan had called her a “psycho” from the sidelines.
‘She came across as a tough character. I don’t think she’d let anyone know that they’d affected her, but it did and it made her uncomfortable.’
Riglar and Cusack are pictured playing on the same team together in March 2023
Riglar, who had also worked with Morgan previously at Leicester City, described how his ‘reputation preceded him’.
‘I think in women’s football a lot of people speak and know each other. I don’t think there were many people who would speak to each other and have a positive thing to say.’
Asked whether the club would have known about his reputation, Riglar replied: ‘In my opinion, yes.’
She later added: ‘Other girls would come off crying in floods of tears just about something Jonathan had said in a training session. One example was in the first year, and I’d say that was quite a common occurrence.’
The inquest heard Maddy had a sick note from a doctor to have time off football and her marketing job at United. She had also been prescribed anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills.
Maddy told Riglar before her death that she wanted to move to Dubai and be a flight attendant, and had been looking for a new job online.
Riglar told the coroner: ‘She didn’t want to go back to playing football. I don’t think she really knew how to get out of that situation.’
Maddy also asked Riglar: ‘If I wasn’t a footballer would you still love me?’
Shortly after Maddy’s death, Sheffield United commissioned an external investigation, which concluded in December 2023 and found no evidence of misconduct.
In February 2024, the club dismissed Morgan after details emerged of a relationship with a teenage player while he was manager of Leicester City between 2014 and 2021.
The club said the dismissal was unrelated to the FA’s investigation, though it was welcomed by the Cusack family at the time.
The inquest continues.
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