Former US soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo has been arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

A spokesperson for Winston-Salem Police Department in North Carolina said the 40-year-old was arrested in a Walmart carpark on Thursday.

Her two-year-old twins were in the car when she was found passed out behind the wheel with the engine running, police said.

She was charged with impaired driving, resisting arrest, and misdemeanour child abuse, before being released.

The police spokesperson said: “Based on the impending prosecution, no further information will be released regarding this arrest.”

A statement was posted on Solo’s Twitter account, attributed to her lawyer Rich Nichols.

It said: “On the advice of counsel, Hope can’t speak about this situation, but she wants everyone to know that her kids are her life, that she was released immediately and is now at home with her family, that the story is more sympathetic than the initial charges suggest, and that she looks forward to her opportunity to defend these charges.”

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Solo is considered one of the greatest female goalkeepers and she helped the US team win two Olympic gold medals and a World Cup.

But her career was also controversial: she was dismissed from the team after the 2016 Olympics, following an incident in which she called the Swedish team “cowards” for taking a defensive stance against the defending gold medallists.

She was suspended for 30 days in 2015 after she and her husband were pulled over in a US soccer-owned van, and he was charged with driving while intoxicated.

She was also benched after questioning coach Greg Ryan’s starting line-up during the 2007 World Cup.

Solo will appear in court on 28 June.

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