My sister Maddy Cusack took her own life… but no one wants to say her name now

Apart from a phone call from chief executive Stephen Bettis to inform Maddy’s relatives of the outcome, her brother says there was no meaningful contact with the family after that – no agreement to their request to see the full findings of the investigation; no financial or other support for a foundation set up in Maddy’s name, which has raised more than £50,000 as part of a mission to support girls in football; no communication regarding a petition calling, to no avail, for United to stop wearing her shirt number (No.8) in her honour; and no consultation prior to organising a tribute to her during the men’s team’s Championship victory over Derby County on Saturday, which her mother and brother, lifelong Rams fans, attended.

This, says her brother, from a club that mourned the loss of a “beloved sister” immediately after her death. “You didn’t treat her like a sister, did you?” he adds bitterly, as his family search for answers. The fight now turns to ensuring an inquiry launched by the Football Association in January avoids what one leading MP described as “seemingly quite serious flaws” in the probe commissioned by United. The government at the time welcomed the FA’s involvement, which also led to the inquiry into Maddy’s death being adjourned pending the findings of the inquiry.

News of the investigation was followed by Morgan’s sudden sacking when it was revealed that he had begun a secret relationship with a teenage player between 2014 and 2021, when he was coach of Leicester City Women. Morgan admitted to having had a “consensual” relationship with an “adult” member of his team.

He has always denied harboring a vendetta against Maddy, who he previously coached at Leicester, where the midfielder spent eight weeks on the rocks. That denial extended to accusations that he called her a “psycho” when his Burnley side played United shortly before his own move to Sheffield. Her brother says he was “not surprised” by Morgan’s sacking or the reason behind it, adding: “I was happy he ended up on the scrap heap.”

“I trust the English Football Association unless they give me a reason not to”

Maddy’s family have put the FA investigators in touch with people who worked with Morgan and at United generally and who have contacted them since her death. Her brother is patiently awaiting the outcome of an investigation now in its ninth month. He claims he and his mother had to “pull” the FA first. “The response we received was that they did not want to interfere with our grief, which was bizarre to say the least. How can you interfere when you say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Is there anything we can do?’?” But he adds of the investigation: “I trust the FA as long as they don’t give me a reason not to.”

For him, that means not hiding the full findings of a report on the case, nor shying away from imposing “appropriate sanctions” on individuals or institutions when wrongdoing comes to light. “There has to be accountability,” he says.

Another reason for his comments is frustration at what he feels has been a lack of action since his sister’s suicide to address the pressures many footballers face as the women’s game grows. As a player in the Championship, Maddy juggled her career with a job as a marketing manager at Bramall Lane, which added to the workplace stress she may have been facing. “People seem to underestimate the gravity of the situation and what has actually happened,” her brother says, condemning a culture of “we’re trying to grow football. Don’t you dare say anything bad about women’s football.”

As well as urging lessons to be learned from Maddy’s death, he wants to ensure a life that ended cruelly in its prime is not forgotten. To her brother, who was born less than a year before Maddy, she will always be the little sister with whom he shared his lifelong love of football. His “fondest memory” of her comes from their childhood one-on-one games – “she wanted to beat everyone, not just me.” That included boys, who she played with and against, regularly stealing the show to win “player of the match.”