Could Arrested Aminata Diallo Be Women’s Soccer’s Tanya Harding?

It's strange when history repeats itself. When ugly history repeats itself, it can be depressing. Do you remember U.S. Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan? She was attacked prior to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships by a man named Shane Stant, who was hired by Kerrigan's teammate Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, in January of 1994. Gillooly conspired with Harding to have Stant strike Kerrigan across the knee with with essentially a small bat. Well on Wednesday, the professional women's soccer world was hit with a similar story.

According to a report by the New York Times reporters Tariq Panja and Andrew Das, Aminata Diallo, was arrested on Wednesday as part of a French police investigation into one Diallo's teammates, Kheira Hamraoui, was beaten by a masked men wielding an iron bar. The two women play the same position on the team.

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The New York Times report added that "Diallo, had her custody extended by 24 hours on Wednesday evening by a French prosecutor, and was subjected to additional questioning on Thursday about the incident, in which her teammate Kheira Hamraoui was pulled from a car and beaten on her way home from a team dinner last week."

Panja and Das stated, "Diallo had been in police custody for about 36 hours. The Versailles prosecutor’s office confirmed that an acquaintance of Diallo’s, a man in Lyon who had been in jail on unrelated charges, had been questioned and then released. The prosecutor’s office offered no further comment or details on the investigation, or why Diallo or the man was detained."

The article added that detention is "not uncommon" French police investigations and Diallo could be charged with a crime at a later time "if evidence implicates her in a crime." Unfortunately, stories about underhanded ways to gain playing time or "the top spot" will probably never go away. When they get to the level of being a crime, hopefully they stay few and far between.