Lawyers defending Donna Shalala and rest of the US Soccer Federation’s Board from a personal lawsuit just accidentally previewed their legal defenses in a New York court hearing, which exposed that they’re probably going to lose the case, badly.

Shalala and the US Soccer Board voted to kill the North American Soccer League (NASL), an emerging competitor to Major League Soccer (MLS), whom she and the rest of the board favor, while engaging in a tremendously conflicted business relationship that has sent a billion dollars in television money rolling towards the struggling league’s ownership group.

Donna Shalala was supposed to be an Independent Director, but instead she began doing public business with MLS, which included a stint as their illegally unregistered lobbyist when she sought public land for a stadium deal including her former employer’s football team, the University of Miami, and a Miami MLS team.

That created a major conflict of interest.

But Shalala was in charge of US Soccer’s Risk, Audit and Compliance committee, meaning that she would’ve had to report the conflict of interest to herself, then to the non-profit’s general counsel, and at that point to resign and seek re-appointment as a regular board member.

She didn’t.

Donna Shalala continued in office until earlier this year, right after US Soccer was sued for anti-trust violations in federal court by the NASL, but before she was personally sued for her role in shutting down their league.

Now, her attorneys made a legal error in arguing their affirmative defenses during a dismissal hearing in New York Supreme Court while defending Shalala and the rest of the board from the NASL’s lawsuit accusing them of breach of conflict of interest, duty of loyalty, breach of fiduciary duty and other grounds.

They said in court: