- by Ted Westervelt, writing from Denver
- via soccerreform.us
Despite the best efforts of MLS Commissioner Don Garber, USSF President Sunil Gulati, US Presidents Barak Obama and Bill Clinton, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Landon Donovan and a host of others, FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar over the United States today – in a very close vote.
Even if the name “Gousabid” evokes a skin condition, It didn’t have to be like this.
FIFA has made their feelings abundantly clear on the way we control our soccer in the USA. Earlier this fall, MLS Commissioner Don Garber had the pleasure of introducing US President Barack Obama to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. According to Garber, the first words out of Blatter’s mouth the the President of the United States were: “When will the United States adopt promotion, relegation and move to a winter season?”
This wasn’t the first clue.
in 2008, FIFA announced preference would be given to prospective World Cup host nations that adopted promotion and relegation. Blatter has asked both Garber and Gulati about their timetable to move to promotion and relegation.
In case you still think USSF didn’t receive this message, flash back two weeks to halftime at MLS Cup, when Garber suddenly began babbling about simulated promotion and relegation and a move to winter play.
Simply put, USSF chose MLS single entity over Gousabid.
Sacrificing History
Perhaps worse than choosing closed league MLS single entity over the prospect of hosting the 2022 World Cup: The vast swaths of US soccer history our leaders ignored to justify their dogma.
Gulati could only stretch back to the dim history of the 1984 Mary Lou Retton LA Olympics in his final pitch to FIFA brass in Zurich yesterday.
That would make US soccer history 26.
The truth is tougher for them to swallow. It doesn’t jive with their rhetoric. Since their key defense for MLS is the “youth of soccer” in the United States, they couldn’t possibly acknowledge that an American and US club player Bert Patenaude notched the first hat-trick in World Cup history during the semifinal run in 1930. They’d look loony if they pointed out that the world record holder for goals in a top flight league season was an American, and that he scored them for an American club. Yet, Archie Stark of Bethlehem Steel set that mark in 1925 when he hit for 67 goals. It would be incongruous for Gulati to point out that the US appeared in three of the first four World Cup Finals. Congratulations to the USSF President for recollecting the sell out LA Colosseum Olympic crowds. Sad that he was unable to point out that US soccer clubs grabbed the silver and bronze in 1904 Olympics. Interesting to note his comments didn’t include any reference to MLS, so he can’t be disparaged for ignoring the great legacy of American soccer leagues before them. Still, he could have mentioned that European friendly sell outs started in the 1920s, when the New York Giants took on Vienna Hakoah in the Polo Grounds.
Feigned Shock
As the post mortem continues for Gousabid, and the Blatter bashing begins, it’s important for every American soccer supporter to understand: USSF chose to preserve the single entity closed league MLS future over doing everything in their power to host a World Cup within the lifetimes of millions of American soccer supporters.
According to all reports, the US and Qatar were the finalists. It is not fantasy or hyperbole to suggest that promotion, relegation and a season switch would have sealed the deal.
With our priorities this far out of whack, was Qatar really such a shock?
It is no longer shocking that USSF sacrifices US soccer history to justify the MLS business model.
It is shocking that they sacrificed two World Cups for it.
