- 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.
U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati talks to ESPN about recent events in FIFA and CONCACAF during halftime of the USA's match with Spain.
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| [photo by "The West End"] |
- by Tyler Walter, writing from Fairfax, VA
Clearly this is revealing that MLS was only having ideas of "simulated" promotion and relegation, along with a season switch out of hope that FIFA would buy into their semi-conformity, as well as give the United States the World Cup bid. And, of course, that did not happen, and Qatar will be hosting the 2022 games. In that sense, the fact that Abbott has publicly stated that MLS now has no immediate nor long term plans to conform, is hardly a surprise.
Unfortunately, it looks like the only inevitable change for 2012 will be that MLS moves back to an imbalanced schedule and further promote depreciated conferences. Reason? The promotion of regional rivalries. To many, this likely sounds outrageously tacky and unneeded.
However, while the news that the league is going to retain a closed shop model will depress non-Chivas USA fans, MLS is in no position to declare how the American soccer pyramid is structured. That power, lies within the United States Soccer Federation, as MLS is a league sanctioned under U.S. Soccer, meaning that the structures of the league and how their assembled is decided by the federation, not the league.
Examples include the United States' births into the CONCACAF Champions League. U.S. Soccer decides which four of their affiliated clubs can qualify, not MLS. It just so happens that three MLS clubs are guaranteed a Champions League spot since MLS is the premier soccer league in the United States. Those three MLS clubs guarenteed a spot in the champions league are the winners of the MLS Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup, as well as the MLS Cup runner-up. The U.S. Open Cup champion also qualifies.
The same principal applies for the U.S. Open Cup. Only eight American MLS clubs are allowed in the tournament. The way the qualification is structured is strictly by MLS standards. Other examples of U.S. Soccer's power over MLS include referees, field approval as well as club and league approval.
Most importantly, at least in regards to promotion and relegation is how USSF structures its affiliated leagues. Right now, it's structured in this order: Major League Soccer, North American Soccer League, USL Professional Division, USL Premier Development League, NPSL, and then USASA. In this essence, if USSF wanted to, they could make the NASL the top league in the country, and demote MLS to second-tier status. Now, that wont happen, but USSF has the power to do so.
And that includes the power of how club promotion and relegation works. USSF can decide that the weakest MLS clubs go down to NASL, being replaced by the top NASL clubs. Now, the leagues would heavily resist it to a point they refuse to abide, and should they do so, they'll lose sanctioning. Consequently, all MLS clubs would lose out on the chance to play in the U.S. Open Cup as well as the CONCACAF Champions League.
So theoretically, if Sunil Gulati and USSF Board made this decision, Chivas USA (presuming they resume their dreadful play) would have to be relegated to the North American Soccer League, if not, a relegation playoff. Likewise, Puerto Rico Islanders (again, presuming they continue their strong start) will be playing MLS ball, or playing Chivas in a promotion playoff. If either the leagues resist, well, then so much for their USSF and FIFA sanctioning.
The sigh of relief (if you're in favor of a closed league model) is that USSF will probably never institute this system, or at least as long as Gulati is charge.
- by Ted Westervelt, writing from Denver
- via soccerreform.us
Even if this last minute stay holds – and regardless of whether details like US Open Cup eligibility are ironed out – NASL is liable to find itself in front of the same executioner again in 2012 – minus the Montreal Impact, who will be well on their way to faux MLS promotion.
Publicly US Soccer frets that NASL may not meet their stringent new D2 requirements, including the $20 million net worth requirement that every majority owner must meet. In a league whose NFL connections are well documented, perhaps it is ironic that that Green Bay Packers couldn’t meet these new US Soccer standards for second division soccer clubs in the United States.
Conventional wisdom holds that MLS has already cherry picked the strongest teams and markets from NASL. Judging by their choice of name, it is hard to see how NASL would ever abandon first division aspirations. Under these circumstances, it is difficult see how the insubordinate D2 league stripped of its top teams serves any remaining purpose to our entitled first division or their clients on the board at US Soccer.
Yet, NASL serves a huge purpose to US soccer supporters: The league comes as close to exemplifying the spirit of limitless possibility that defines club soccer all over the world as any closed US league ever has.
Hopefully we are witnessing the first halting baby steps our federation is taking away from myopic servitude to of any one league, and towards the service every US soccer supporter, potential club investor, and player.
Perhaps we are just watching our federation delay the execution of one incarcerated league to serve the interests of another.
Perfectly Good Enemy
NASL is not a perfect soccer league. Operating within the confines of a tightly closed US Soccer pyramid, they are allowed no avenues to authentic promotion, and no safety valve of relegation. As is the case with every major American sports league, the league has more power than the teams within, allowing battles between leagues to play out in tawdry corporate telenovelas like the one in this blog entry. As has been the history of MLS, NASL ownership is concentrated in too few hands. It suffers from the same vast lack of interest that every US soccer league does, regardless of caste.
In short, NASL is as unstable as every closed soccer league in the United States since the nineteenth century.
For all the shortcomings endemic to our closed leagues, the NASL contains commodities in which US Soccer is in short supply: Functioning soccer clubs, real legacy and history. Despite a rising American tide of interest in club soccer since 1996, fully 75% of our lower divisions clubs have failed. While that is a step up from the 99% club failure rate our closed league system and paralyzed federation amassed between 1914 and 1996, both periods indict our system in that failure rate – not soccer itself.
Armed with permanent D1 sanction and a stacked USSF board, creative finance and tight team controls, MLS has been able to mask this inherent closed league soccer instability. Despite a US Soccer gift basket full of entitlements and authoritarian controls – including the ability to limit the quality of every club, and the power to sell first division sanctions to the highest bidder, instability continues to rear it’s ugly head. Look no further for evidence of MLS impermanence than a season schedule unreleased until the month before opening day.
Abhorrent single entity financial strategies may have allowed MLS to survive at an anorexic level of interest at a tightly controlled levels of play. The cost in of these policies hopes and aspirations of supporters and investors in our lower divisions can be measured via the club casualty rate. No second division soccer league in the world has ever thrived under the conditions foisted upon NASL by US Soccer and their bosses at MLS. It is no surprise to see our lower league clubs suffocate under them.
Many who oppose a transition to full promotion and relegation often point to Portsmouth and Leeds as omens of the horrible dangers the system presents to club owners.
Perhaps they should consider the fact that both clubs are still breathing.
Walking Talking Conflicts of Interest
As US Soccer threatens all of NASL with relegation and MLS utilizes pseudo promotion to keep their league afloat, both tell supporters that US club soccer remains too fragile for promotion and relegation. That is clumsy sentence to describe an even clumsier reality. If there are enough clubs in the US soccer pyramid to threaten entire leagues with relegation, and MLS is using faux promotion of the Sounders, Timbers, Whitecaps, and and the Impact to remain viable, don’t their arguments against the real thing begin to sound as empty as an executioners promise of a quick, painless death?
That is why it is so fantastic to see Don Garber and Sunil Gulati recognize their vast conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from an important vote in which the fate of a five US soccer clubs hangs in the balance. Hopefully it marks the beginning of a new trend. No country in the world can claim a higher club soccer failure rate than the US, and no two men have stood more strongly for a system in which clubs expire with such alarming regularity. Perhaps a river to deeper reforms flows through a federation in which both men drift away from their inherent conflicts of interest, and spill out the patio door of Soccer House in Chicago.
Last week, Hosni Mubarak insisted that Egypt would descend into chaos without him. This week he is gone, and the streets of Cairo are returning to normal. MLS would very much like all of us to believe that US club soccer would expire without their tight controls and authoritarian micromanagement. As Garber and Gulati continue to stand steadfast against real progress towards traditional open leagues and independent clubs that mark stable soccer pyramids all over the world, perhaps more supporters will recognize that they do so by sharing a trait with every authoritarian regime in the world: Maintaining the misperception of their indispensability.
At that point, perhaps more US supporters will conclude that soccer is more exceptional than the US domestic sports league model in which Don Garber and Sunil Gulati have it canned. After hearing their conclusions, perhaps our federation can bear it’s teeth for supporters in a much more substantial way than granting a twelve month stay of execution to a plucky, albeit flawed league trapped in the matrix of the US club soccer pyramid.
Fantasy? Maybe. In size and scope, much less pie in the sky than the one in which MLS adopts promotion, relegation and independent clubs all by themselves.
Despite any and all flaws in the decision making that led to an admittedly half-hearted, stopgap, and last second solution, this episode illustrates a defining characteristic of club soccer: Unlike the governing bodies of our domestic sports, soccer federations have teeth. They make decisions can break entire leagues. They are accountable directly to supporters.
Perhaps we should take advantage of that.