US soccer star Claudio Reyna, wife exposed in alleged Gregg Berhalter World Cup blackmail scheme
By Jeremy Layton

USMNT coach reveals he kicked wife, claims World Cup blackmail plot Ex-USMNT star slams manager for ‘betraying’ Gio Reyna at World Cup Gio Reyna responds to Gregg Berhalter-USMNT controversy Benched star almost sent home as behind-the-scenes drama revealed It appears we have a major U.S. soccer scandal on our hands.

Claudio Reyna, former American and international club soccer star and father of current USMNT player Gio Reyna, and his wife Daneille were the ones who threatened to reveal a troubling incident involving current head coach Gregg Berhalter from when he was 18 years old to U.S. soccer executives, according to a report by ESPN.

The call took place on Dec. 11, per ESPN. Danielle confirmed in a statement to FOX Sports that she reported the incident to USSF sporting director Earnie Stewart not long after the ESPN report went live.

The incident in question was a decades-old act of domestic violence in which Berhalter kicked his now-wife, Rosalind. Berhalter shared his accounting of the story in a lengthy statement released Tuesday, in which he admitted to wrongdoing in 1991 when he was 18. Berhalter identified an “individual” who contacted U.S. Soccer in “an apparent effort to leverage something very personal from long ago” in an attempt to get him fired.

Now, we apparently know who that individual was. And it came after Claudio and Danielle’s son, Gio, appeared to get on the wrong side of Berhalter during the Americans’ run at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Berhalter reportedly told Gio that he would have a limited role before the tournament started and followed through on his promise. Reyna only logged 53 minutes total in the World Cup across two games, with zero starts.

After the U.S. was eliminated from the World Cup, Berhalter spoke at the HOW Institute for Society’s Summit on Moral Leadership and mentioned that he “had a player that was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field.” He did not mention Reyna by name, but it was widely assumed that the 19-year-old Borussia Dortmund star was the culprit. The next day, Gio Reyna confirmed it.

It was around the same time that the parents called U.S. Soccer – with, Berhalter claims, the intent of getting him fired.

Berhalter and Claudio Reyna – a decorated player in U.S. soccer, having been a part of the 1998, 2002 and 2008 American World Cup teams – have a relationship that spans decades. The two played soccer together as far back as their youth and high school leagues and overlapped on the national team for over a decade. The two wives, Danielle and Rosalind, were also soccer teammates at the University of North Carolina.

The conflict is clearly personal – and the Reynas appear to have succeeded in damaging Berhalter’s reputation. On Wednesday, U.S. Soccer announced that it would be assistant coach Anthony Hudson, not Berhalter, that would lead a January camp in California as the investigation continues.