- by Ted Westervelt, writing from Denver
“To take the moral high ground is fine – unless you’re standing in quicksand.”
- US Soccer/NE Revolution President Sunil Gulati on voting for Sepp Blatter
Like Mickey Rooney in the Samuel M. Steifel production, US Soccer has always struggled to choose between two girls: The nice one that represents all the promise of the beautiful game, and the other kind – a local beauty queen who seeks profit from power and control.
US Soccer has been mired in that quicksand for a century now. Our closed sports leagues seek profit thru power and closed league control. That makes them impossible to govern from an independent federation level. If allowed to choose their own members, leagues simply amass more power than the federation.
The conundrum is, unlike our domestic pro leagues, professional club soccer thrives under strong and independent federations that can effectively govern the sport.
The closed league quicksand of league power President(s) Gulati finds himself in is a little scarier still. Like all his predecessors, he has to choose between the beautiful game and US pro sports sports business model queens that seek to control it in search of profit. Unlike his predecessors, Sunil is the first US President to be compensated by the local queens to keep FIFA happy.
Ungovernable
The problem of US Soccer’s inability to govern our kind of leagues first raised it’s head in the late 1920s, producing American Soccer Wars that crippled the league and debilitated the development of the sport for 40 years.
A decade after being sanctioned by FIFA, the American Soccer League had grown into our second most popular pro sport behind Major League Baseball, and began to chafe under federation power. In 1928, claiming unjust scheduling pressure, the league chose to shun the Open Cup, leading US Soccer to desanction ASL. This was no small decision, since the league had grown strong enough to frighten top European clubs. Indeed, by 1925, ASL was luring their over stars with better pay, a phenomenon the Scottish FA called “The American Menace”. Although the rift was eventually mended, ASL’s popularity was mortally wounded, and the Great Depression finished it off a few seasons later.
When US club soccer came out of it’s forty year funk in the 1970s, NASL chose to solve the problem of federation friction by simply ignoring US Soccer. Our federation was left to embrace the nice girl of amateur soccer, leaving the professional gal to her own devices. That approach proved no more successful. NASL collapsed just as quickly and completely as ASL did, debilitating the development of the sport again – until FIFA insisted that we had a top league and proper soccer pyramid in place as a condition for hosting the 1994 World Cup.
Today, our local US pro soccer queens have taken a different approach. They’ve embraced the symbiotic relationship between league and federation – but they’ve simply co-opted the federation by installing a league executive at it’s head, and stacking the board that elects him. In this way, our federation remains married to the dream girl of international soccer, but is literally paid for and authorized by the local closed league harlots at MLS.
Dysfunction Junction
Turns out, even when the mistress co-opts the wife, it’s still a dysfunctional relationship. US Soccer remains married to the concept of insuring the welfare of the sport in the United States in theory, but with sugar mama MLS is paying the bills, it’s pretty clear that Gulati’s mouth is where his MLS money is.
If you read this blog you’ll recognize this preaching: The game has always been in us. An American holds the world record for goals in a single top flight league season, and set it in 1925 with Bethlehem Steel, FC. Another American notched the first hat trick in the World Cup, in 1930. In 1966, NBC’s tape delayed rebroadcast of the World Cup Final set a ratings record for a soccer match that would last until 1994. The 2010 World Cup Final blew everyone away with a 28.6 rating in the US.
Meanwhile, MLS averages .2 ratings for regular season matches, and only reached .4 for MLS Cup ’10.
As anyone who follows the fortunes of the USMNT, MLS TV ratings, or US player development knows, MLS systemic stagnation flies in face of the rising popularity of soccer in North America.
Some will argue strenuously that our special closed league needs are not at the core of our inability to take our rightful place with the elite soccer nations of the world. They will swear that soccer itself is to blame for these shortcomings, and that our blind adherence to a domestic pro sports business doesn’t smother the global game of soccer. They’ll say weak federations and and the failure of club soccer have a totally coincidental relationship.
These same people will tell you that long before MLS adopted their single entity business model, our major closed pro sports leagues in the United States were powerful entities, answerable only to themselves and local, state, and federal law. They’ll say none of them answers to any governing body beneath the US Congress, and point out that some have been wildly successful.
To them I always say: I refuse to blame the beautiful game for the failure of our local pro sports owners to profit by controlling it. I say the rules that apply to our dominant leagues playing domestic sports do not apply to a league that limits it’s own teams to lower quality than unlimited global competition. I say it’s time to get with the program.
US Soccer Self Control
If Gulati’s quicksand is defending the radical MLS single entity model to FIFA, he’s sinking deeper by the day. He and MLS Commissioner Don Garber are always quick to point out the youth and fragility of soccer in the United States when defending their closed league, single entity status quo. As seen above, misperceptions on the youth of the US game can be quickly challenged - even with the US Soccer Hall of Fame closed. How tough must it be for Gulati to keep calling soccer a fragile sport when MLS is trying to charge $100 million for a franchise?
Under these circumstances, I understand why Gulati must support any FIFA President, no matter their criminal record, or vast unpopularity with US supporters. FIFA would pick off MLS long before Gulati set foot on the moral high ground. Indeed, if it was possible to vote by mail a month ago, Gulati would have FedExed it. Perhaps he would even help take out an opponent for the presumptive winner.
Gulati’s quicksand is the same as his predecessors’: League power. The path to solid ground has remained the same since the roaring twenties: Stop allowing leagues to amass power by determining their own membership.
A true promotion and relegation system does just that. US Soccer must follow the example of every major soccer nation in the world and implement it post haste. Better a century late than never. It’s time for US Soccer to show a little self control. Time to renew the vows with the beautiful game, and stop crawling into bed with the controlling MLS mistress.
