INDIANA Fever superstar Sophie Cunningham has slammed the WNBA over the fines they’ve given her.
In response to this, she has set up a fundraiser with a $1 million target to help her pay the fines.
Sophie Cunningham set up a GoFundMe page to pay for her WNBA fines[/caption]
The fundraiser’s target was set at $1 million as a joke, and the donations will be given to charity[/caption]
Cunningham received multiple sanctions from the WNBA throughout the season.
The majority of these came from her comments against officials, both on social media and on her podcast.
So on Thursday, the guard jokingly set up a GoFundMe to pay for those fines.
She captioned the fundraiser, “This is more of a joke than anything.
“For fines only, or to a charity, or for a yacht. I don’t know.”
The initial target was set at $1 million, but it was reduced to $26,000 soon after.
An additional update followed this.
It read, “A yacht would be nice, but whatever we raise here will be going directly to Ronald McDonald House Charities.
“I’ll take care of my own fines. Y’all are the best.”
The 29-year-old was most recently fined for comments on her podcast, Show Me Something, about Paige Bueckers after the Indiana Fever played the Dallas Wings.
She claimed the referees were overly protective of the young star and were not giving equal calls to her teammates.
This was Cunningham’s third fine in quick succession.
She had previously been fined for implying referees were “stupid”.
Cunningham was recently ruled out of the season with a major knee injury.
And following this, her sister Lindsey used this as ammunition to slam the WNBA referees.
She wrote on X: “@WNBA, maybe you should focus less on fining players for commenting on your poor officiating and more about hiring officials that are able to call a consistent game and protect your athletes. Pathetic. Praying for you.”
It’s not just Cunningham who has called out the league, however.
Napheesa Collier, vice president of the players’ union, recently criticized WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
She said, “We have the best league in the world. We have the best fans in the world. But we have the worst leadership in the world.
“Year after year, the only thing that remains consistent is the lack of accountability from our leaders.”
