Maddy Cusack did not want Sheffield United to know about talks with club’s former chaplain, inquest told

The former club chaplain at Sheffield United has told an inquest into Maddy Cusack’s death that she repeatedly asked him not to inform the club that she had been speaking to him.Dr Delroy Hall volunteered in the role at Sheffield United from 2017 until November 2023, about two months after Cusack’s death on 20 September 2023. Hall told the court on Wednesday that he thought players would come to him to discuss problems as a “last resort”. Cusack spoke to him multiple times in August 2023, including specifically on 23 August, and Hall said she asked him three or four times: “Please don’t tell anyone I’m talking to you.”Hall told the court he did not believe Cusack seemed at risk of any self-harm but she had told him she was feeling pressures caused by trying to juggle both her football and marketing careers. She also worked for the club’s marketing department on a dual contract. Hall said: “Training and working meant she was occupied all seven days a week.”Hall recollected that he told Cusack her working hours were “not sustainable”, adding: “I felt she was doing a lot.” He recalled that she had also mentioned having to drive four hours to see her girlfriend, who had moved to Lewes FC in East Sussex in the summer of 2023. He told the court he had offered her advice on coping mechanisms such as breathing techniques. Hall added that he had resigned from his voluntary role in November 2023 – after providing support to some of Cusack’s teammates in the wake of her death – because he no longer knew who he was supposed to report to at the club.The court also heard evidence from two senior figures at Sheffield United on Wednesday: the chief executive, Stephen Bettis, and the head of football administration, Carl Shieber. Both men were asked the reasons why it had taken so long for the club to inform the women’s players that they were transitioning to full-time status, after the end of the 2022-23 season, because earlier in the inquest the court heard evidence that that “rushed” transition had caused stress for players and staff.The court was told on Wednesday that the delay had been partly down to a need to wait for confirmation of the men’s team securing promotion to the Premier League, which was clinched on 26 April 2026, and then board approval for the funding, and that it would not have been possible for the women’s team to progress to full-time status without the financial support from the men’s side. Shieber also revealed that at one stage, the possibility of dropping the women’s team funding altogether had been mentioned.Shieber also told the court that when going through the recruitment process that led to Jonathan Morgan being appointed as the women’s team manager in February 2023 that he had been told by the former head of women’s football, Zoe Johnson, that Morgan had been “a bit of a dick” on the sidelines during one game but that she felt he was the strongest of the candidates and encouraged Shieber to meet Morgan for an informal chat, which led to a formal interview. He added that he thought Morgan had been “very transparent” during his job interview.Shieber also told the court that nobody had ever said to him that Cusack was struggling to do both her jobs for the club. Bettis said he had also never been made aware that Cusack was struggling with the pressures of juggling her jobs.Bettis defended the club’s handling of the transition of the women’s team to full-time status and insisted the club had come on “leaps and bounds” in the past three years. At one point, the coroner stepped in to halt a heated exchange between Bettis and the family’s lawyer.Bettis told the inquest that he had repeatedly pushed for the board to increase the budget of the women’s team but that he felt the financial state of women’s football is “currently not sustainable”, saying: “At that point [the 2022-23 season] we were probably losing £750,000 a year on women’s football. Going full-time then would have doubled that.“This season [2026-27] we will lose over £2m. The reality of women’s football is it’s currently not sustainable in the format it is. There is a big desire from the WSL [Women’s Super League] to keep pushing the product, which I completely understand and respect, but the revenue is not there.“The onus is on the football clubs to invest. But we were pushing internally to support women’s football. We believe in it. [With greater] broadcast revenues, it becomes a sustainable vehicle.” Bettis added that he thought that sustainability was four or five years away.Bettis also told the court that he felt “Maddy was a wonderful person”, adding: “There was always going to be an opening for her in marketing [at the club] for her to continue on further in her career after football.”The inquest is scheduled to resume on Thursday. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org