KC Current isn’t just good for goals; forward Haley Hopkins heads the National Women’s Soccer League players’ union

Hopkins (13) hi-fives Debinha (99) at the Current’s Apr 9 match against SC Corinthians // Photo by Tarik Sykes

As with everyone on the Kansas City Current, forward Haley Hopkins spends her days training and chasing wins for the Current. Yet, amid the pressure of the National Women’s Soccer League—the pressure to get an edge over all other teams for that competitive top-of-the-table spot—she also spends much of her days fraternizing with the enemy. Kind of. 

Hopkins is the president of the National Women’s Soccer Players Association (NWSLPA). And perhaps the largest of that job is the fraternizing in question, as Hopkins leads one of the league’s most influential bodies in advocating for players’ rights. 

In her 2024 season, and still a rookie, Hopkins would help make league history with the NWSLPA. Joined by other representatives (albeit remotely), she was one of five active players to negotiate in person for a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) on behalf of the union. 

That CBA was a groundbreaking one. Among other protections, it eliminated the league’s entry draft—a drastic turn from recruitment models in American professional sports writ large—while establishing guaranteed contracts and prohibiting trades without player consent.

Then, Hopkins’ fellow players elected her president. 

Earlier this year, The Pitch spoke with Hopkins about entering the role so close to her rookie season, what goes into the work of advocating for roughly 400 to 500 players at a time, and the debate of baseball fields as either an embarrassing second thought for high-caliber professionals or as groundbreaking stages for the NWSL’s growing popularity. 

The Pitch: What made you want to take this role on so early in your career? Was it something you felt ready for at the time? 

Haley Hopkins: I didn’t really understand the power of a union until I was really playing. As a player, a lot of my questions when I was a rookie related to contracts and so many other things—all my answers kind of pointed towards the union to answer, and it has answered them in our CBA. So no, I did not ever foresee this coming. I hadn’t had a passion for it before then, but as I got involved with the professional aspect of soccer, it really changed everything. It was empowering, not only for myself, but even more as an incredible opportunity to be able to advocate for players. 

I forced myself in my rookie year to have a lot of harder conversations, and it’s hard in the NWSL to stand up for yourself in that position. Being able to take that on and help the greater player pool in any way I can and building the CBA framework for years to come, it’s incredible work we do. And there are so many intelligent, driven, and ambitious players within this league, so they make our jobs easy—especially when we have such great engagement and participation across the league. 

Photo by Tarik Sykes

And did you feel that, being newer to the NWSL, you had any fresh insights into the league or your work in the PA? 

As a newer player, having those lived experiences as a rookie was exciting because of that new perspective and difference in that sense, but at the same time I was coming into a committee with very established veterans. There’s also that kind of intimidating, nerve-wracking factor, like ‘Am I where I’m supposed to be?’ and ‘Am I too young to be doing this kind of thing?’ 

But [NWSLPA Executive Director] Meghann Burke and I received so much encouragement and advice from people who, and we still continue to say it to everyone else, where it’s truly like: if you want to do the work and do the job, that’s all we need. That’s the only mentality that you can have going in and when you’re taking on more responsibility. When the opportunity presented itself, I started having conversations about possibly throwing my name out for President. There was a lot of back and forth, and I was nervous about it. But ultimately, it’s work that I truly, truly care about, and there are incredible people you get to work alongside.

For pro women’s soccer back in the day—and even leading up to now—conditions haven’t always been ideal. In your own timeline as a player, has there been much that’s continued to be a concern for you too? 

Yeah, like fields, and for instance baseball fields. We’re seeing a complete evolution for the utility of baseball fields in our league. And prior to my time in the league, there were so many teams playing at minor league baseball stadiums. But the fields were complete trash, like the quality was low and there was no accountability until the players kept pressing and pressing and pressing. We were able to accomplish that in the last CBA—not even the last CBA, but the CBA before then. It’s that fight to get teams off of baseball fields and force organizations to truly invest and find better options. You can’t take shortcuts, because it impacts the players. And without that product, you don’t even have a business. 

Photo by Tarik Sykes

And, as we’ve seen, baseball fields used in today’s environment within our league are these Oracle Parks, our Fenway Parks, Citi Field. I mean, there’s the stadium in Chicago, too. The NWSL is using those—and certain clubs have their reasons for using them—to bring awareness that we can sell out a stadium and to leverage those game-day attendances and revenues to hopefully belay that investing in a facility—in a women’s-only facility. 

We’re lucky in Kansas City to have that, and it’s great to be part of a place that’s pushing that standard for sure. And we’re seeing Brighton is now building their first women’s-only stadium. We see at the end of the day that’s a continuous conversation and, I would say, internal fight. 

But a fight against baseball stadiums, because they’re being used in a different way now and you’re seeing record-breaking attendance numbers. Ultimately, it comes down to the principle of baseball fields, and the players before us fought too hard to get away from that. It’s important for players to have a strong, full hold in our beliefs and remember our history, even though a lot of us haven’t been there. Being firm-footed in where we are, but also open-minded to the changes and evolution in where this league needs to go and what those differences are. I would say that baseball stadiums and field quality definitely have way more of a close eye now. And again, that was a huge part of our CBA and players’ conversations. What players cared about was field quality and conditions.

Yeah, I remember being a little girl and watching FC Kansas City originally play at the Shawnee Mission High School field and even when the Current got started, at Legends Field. 

I mean, we’re professionals—a professional women’s soccer team. We don’t need to be playing in a minor league baseball stadium. And, yes, that same fundamental truth isn’t applicable today in what we’re doing. But the same fundamental truth is that we need to grow and evolve from playing in baseball stadiums and not do these one-off special moments or give players just a piece of what you’re doing. If players aren’t seeing any sort of financial or other incentives to be in those games, then what’s the point?

Legends Field, home of the Monarchs // Photo by Zach Gunter

Legends Field, home of the Monarchs // Photo by Zach Gunter

Speaking of facilities, has holding the presidency from KC—with the investment the Longs have given the team and the construction of CPKC Stadium and the Riverside facility—influenced your approach or outlook in terms of the presidency? 

I came from a market that doesn’t necessarily have that same level of investment that we do here, so it’s been incredible to see what women’s soccer is capable of and what this team and staff have been able to do with that investment in resources. However, there are still things that constantly are going to need work and improvement.

I feel like everyone, and women in general, are told to be grateful for what we have. Yes, we are grateful, but grateful isn’t going to get us anywhere when we need to keep pushing that standard of what we deserve across the board. So, I really commend our players and staff for pushing that mark and continuously having the harder conversations and doing everything we can to make women’s soccer better for it.

You also mentioned earlier that a lot of your work hinges around having conversations, and a lot of them. What types of discussions go into building long-term frameworks like the CBA, along with other strategies and considerations? 

The 2024 CBA had been in the works for years, like even two years before my time in the NWSL. It’s constant and ever-changing, especially as we’re now living out what we fought for. It’s so much good for what we do, but again, it’s kind of like ‘on to the next.’ We’re grateful, and it’s a huge win. We celebrate it in the moment. But again, it’s incomplete in a way. It’s leveraging our wins with that, it’s understanding whatever leveraging our strengths is, and what we have until 2030. In the meantime, it’s communicating with players. It’s forming committees. It’s starting to plant seeds within our player pools about issues that need addressing—players coming to the PA with issues that need addressing. 

Photo by Tarik Sykes

So we’re always going to be fine-tuning and trying to identify anything we can do to benefit the players in our league, and not only benefit, but to protect their health and wellness. We have a long way to go, and we’re in a good spot right now. But we have really high hopes for what we’re capable of. And the players in this league and the product on the field is one thing, and that’s ultimately what’s going to carry us all through at the end of the day. That’s not to be lost on anybody—it will always come back down to the players. So, it’s important that we continue that messaging of constant conversations and the fight, because it really is a fight at the end of the day.

Everything considered, what about the PA’s work most excites you right now? 

Oh gosh, I’m particularly interested in the CBA if I had to identify one tangible thing, because it goes over a little bit about a lot. And again, it’s standards we live out every single day. It’s never lost on me that no draft and things like that—some things that players always had to go through—were not really well understood by me, even at the time, about no draft. But that’s the international model and gives players more autonomy in deciding where they want to go. Ultimately, it’s just being involved in growing the league and working with players that care and value the same thing. Every single player in this league has been involved in some capacity, whether indirectly or directly. So, we always truly want to leave this league and the players and what we fought for in a better place than when we found it. 

And, you know, CBA negotiations are in 2030, and we have commercial rights—it’s a never-ending pool of things that will always come up. It’s like whack-a-mole: when something’s here, and you think you kill it and it’s done, but something else that’s crazy is happening over there. 

But I have all the trust and respect in the world for our union, our staff union, and, to reiterate for the thousandth time, the players.