Right here once more is that age-old query of second probabilities, after we give them and who deserves them, via the lens of contemporary expertise and sensibilities.

Ought to the writer of a set of undeniably sexist tweets — ugly, unintelligent, downright backward missives — be held accountable for these remarks into perpetuity?

There’s a wholesome dialogue available there.

What I can’t determine for the lifetime of me is why Merritt Paulson desires his fragile soccer empire to be the setting for that debate.

By hiring embellished former Manchester United midfielder Phil Neville as the following coach of the Timbers, Paulson chooses as soon as once more to pit himself in opposition to his membership’s most loyal supporters.

As an alternative of exhibiting compassion for followers who sat on the heart of a sexual misconduct scandal that rocked the game, Paulson is thumbing his nostril at them.

As an alternative of denouncing misogyny, Paulson is doubling down on it.

Even when Neville was unquestionably the perfect teaching free agent on the market, which is debatable, hiring him for this membership at this second goes down as a tin-eared determination that demonstrates contempt for Portland’s soccer group.

Was there not a coach out there who might have united the Timbers’ fractured locker room with out additionally stoking painful divisions between supporters and the group?

Was it Inter Miami’s 35 wins in 90 matches beneath Neville that so dazzled Paulson and helped him justify diving headfirst into one other controversy?

The collection of this new gaffer — soccer lingo — is solely a significant gaffe.

It was practically 40 minutes into Neville’s introductory information convention on Tuesday at Windfall Park, that I puzzled whether or not he lastly realized simply how important of a problem he had taken on by agreeing to return to Portland.

It was after the fifth query about his tweets.

Neville spoke passionately about his experiences teaching the English ladies’s crew for three-plus years. He stated that till he coached the Lionesses, he was “ignorant” to the challenges ladies face. He vowed to ardently help the Thorns, not “as a result of I’m right here in Portland and due to the issues which were taking place. That’s simply who I’m and what I do.”

He talked about his dad and mom. He talked about the best way they raised him.

“And not using a shadow of a doubt,” Neville stated, “once I see these tweets that I put out, it’s not a mirrored image however it additionally isn’t one thing that’s me. And it doesn’t make me joyful.”

His voice trailed off there, and he slunk again in his chair. For a second, appeared crushed. Exhausted. And in lots of locations, that may have been sufficient. We might have referred to as off the struggle.

However it’s but additional proof of the Timbers’ malfeasance that Paulson and normal supervisor Ned Grabavoy willfully put Neville able the place he can’t win.

This group was floor zero of sexual misconduct in ladies’s soccer.

It has been barely two years since Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly went public with their accounts of former Thorns coach Paul Riley’s sexual misconduct, allegations that had been corroborated in hair-raising element by the Yates Report final October. Whereas that investigation was underway, the Timbers waited till Andy Polo’s home violence arrest grew to become public earlier than electing to droop, and finally launch, the midfielder.

What if Neville has actually reformed and he actually does care? How can he ever hope to show that in a spot the place there may be not, nor ought to there be, any forgiveness.

Everybody who deserves a second probability isn’t entitled to a second probability in all places.

Nobody ought to conflate Neville’s tweets, together with one the place he described ladies as wanting “equality till it involves paying the payments” and one other wherein he dimly advised ladies can be too busy performing family chores to observe sports activities, with the horrifying actions of Riley and Polo. Neville’s transgressions had been silly and offensive, not legal or abusive.

However I’m going again to this: The Timbers have requested their followers to stay with them via a lot. Why add this to the record?

It’s not that Neville ought to be blacklisted or professionally exiled for his tweets. I don’t imagine that. It’s that any cheap particular person might have checked out Neville’s baggage and the present state of the Timbers’ relationship with this metropolis and concluded it was an terrible match.

Neville apparently had provides from different MLS golf equipment. The higher consequence would have been for the Timbers to let him settle for a type of.

Some would possibly say that Neville’s tweets ought to solely be disqualifying right here if they might be disqualifying anyplace else. I disagree. It’s vital to carry the Timbers to a better commonplace in the identical method Michigan State wanted to have zero tolerance for allegations of sexual impropriety involving soccer coach Mel Tucker after the stain of Larry Nassar, and in the identical method that Penn State can’t defend even the whiff of scandal following its historical past of abuse.

Neville stated he interviewed for the Timbers job primarily with Grabavoy and, you guessed it, Paulson.

Paulson, who sat within the again row subsequent to CEO Heather Davis for Tuesday’s introduction, was not clear concerning the causes for Riley’s departure from the Thorns in 2015 and months later vouched for him to a different membership, in accordance with investigations from final yr.

He doesn’t have the credibility to ask followers to simply accept a coach whose previous actions could possibly be so triggering.

Paulson is within the strategy of promoting the Thorns to new homeowners by the tip of the yr. And the Timbers are additionally not the identical group they had been earlier than Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub had been fired. Three of the highest 5 government positions are held by ladies, together with Davis.

However Paulson exerts important day by day management and possesses final decision-making energy of the Timbers. He signed off on this rent. And if the choices preserve elevating the identical outdated questions, then there merely hasn’t been sufficient change.

As an alternative, Paulson and people beneath him appear to hope everybody simply forgets and strikes on.

With the choice to rent Neville, Paulson appears to be saying to his detractors, “Oh come on now, aren’t you over that but?”

Finally, I don’t imagine Neville’s tweets ought to disqualify him from teaching anyplace ever. He has apologized, comprehensively and convincingly, and never repeated his errors. Is it potential {that a} doltish man-child who first joined the hyper-masculine world {of professional} sports activities on the tender age of 13 can atone for awful judgment?

Goodness, I hope so.

I hope he’s not the identical particular person at 46 that he was 11 years in the past and that these empty-headed, buffoonish feedback not mirror his views towards ladies. That he’s not the sexist that these tweets made him out to be.

However right here’s the factor: We don’t know. We couldn’t know.

The one that is making that character judgment on our behalf has himself repeatedly fallen quick relating to defending ladies.

It’s potential for an individual to be taught from his errors.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be Paulson has.