Washington required its cheerleaders to go topless during photo shoots and act as personal escorts for team sponsors, according to a report in the New York Times.

The incidents occured during the NFL team’s trip to Costa Rica in 2013. While some cheerleaders were required to wear just body paint others were told to go topless for a calendar shoot. Although the women would not appear unclothed in the pictures, team sponsors and other guests – all of whom the women say were male – attended the shoot were granted full access to the shoot.

“At one of my friend’s shoots, we were basically standing around her like a human barricade because she was basically naked, so we could keep the guys from seeing her,” said one of the nine cheerleaders interviewed by the Times. “I was getting so angry that the guys on the trip were skeezing around in the background.”

The Times story also alleges nine of the cheerleaders were then told they had been picked by some of the sponsors as personal escorts to a nightclub. The relationships did not involve sex but some of the women felt the team was “pimping us out”.

“It’s just not right to send cheerleaders out with strange men when some of the girls clearly don’t want to go,” one of the cheerleaders on the trip told the Times, adding that the orders left some of them in tears. “But unfortunately, I feel like it won’t change until something terrible happens, like a girl is assaulted in some way, or raped. I think teams will start paying attention to this only when it’s too late.”

Stephanie Jojokian, the director of Washington’s cheerleaders, disputed the women’s version of events. “I was not forcing anyone to go at all,” Jojokian said. “I’m the mama bear, and I really look out for everybody, not just the cheerleaders. It’s a big family. We respect each other and our craft. It’s such a supportive environment for these ladies.” On Wednesday, Washington put forward two cheerleaders who were on the 2013 trip to speak to the Times. They both said that Jojokian was a good leader and the evening in question had been “a night of relaxation and [a chance] to be away from it all.”

It is not only NFL cheerleaders who have spoken about poor working conditions. In 2016, a former NBA cheerleader for the Milwaukee Bucks told the Guardian she was paid as little as $10 an hour and that the toll of the job had left her in ill health.