Ex-US soccer captain Claudio Reyna and his wife Danielle – Giovanni Reyna’s parents – have admitted to reporting Gregg Berhalter’s domestic violence incident with his wife 31 years ago to US Soccer, amid reports of an alleged blackmail plot.In a bombshell statement, Berhalter went public about kicking his wife during an argument in 1991, ‘which a third party has used against my family and me.’ Berhalter claimed he was blackmailed in a lengthy statement on his Twitter profile.Danielle Reyna contacted US Soccer after Gio Reyna was told by Berhalter he would play a limited role in Qatar. She admitted Wednesday she was unhappy at the treatment of her son at the World Cup.Danielle contacted US Soccer of the sensitive details about the US head coach on December 11 – the same day Berhalter opened up at a leadership event and claimed he almost sent an unnamed player home from the World Cup due to his ‘extreme’ poor behavior.Claudio Reyna and his wife Danielle gave U.S. Soccer the information about Gregg Berhalter kicking his now-wife Rosalind around 1991, per multiple reports pic.twitter.com/NbGIk1T9n9— B/R Football (@brfootball) January 4, 2023 In addition to Gio’s limited playing time at the World Cup, there were other indications of dissatisfaction between the Reyna and Berhalter families.Fox Sports reported on December 12 that Danielle and Rosalind had planned to travel to games together in Qatar, but those plans were scrapped due to an unspecified ‘flare-up.’Claudio Reyna, now Austin FC’s sporting director, and Berhalter already played soccer in their youth and in high school – St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey – before linking up at international level. Danielle Reyna and Rosalind Berhalter were roommates and soccer teammates for four years with the University of North Carolina.Claudio Reyna was really out here watching his son not get minutes like this https://t.co/GWZk4gfTz9 pic.twitter.com/ZJUBu75mMp— Mark Yesilevskiy (@MarkWhyy) January 4, 2023 Danielle took responsibility for informing US Soccer of Berhalter’s past but denied making any threats. Danielle was frustrated by Berhalter getting ‘forgiveness for doing something much worse’ at a similar age to Gio. Gio Reyna played just twice at the World Cup with both appearances coming from off the bench, before USA lost to Holland. ‘To set the record straight, I did call (US Soccer sporting director) Earnie Stewart on December 11, just after the news broke that Gregg had made negative statements about my son Gio at a leadership conference,’ her statement read.’I have known Earnie for years and consider him to be a close friend. I wanted to let him know that I was absolutely outraged and devastated that Gio had been put in such a terrible position, and that I felt very personally betrayed by the actions of someone my family had considered a friend for decades.
