How this weekend could shape US Soccer's long-term future
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Version 0 of 1. Who will lead US Soccer into the next decade? That won’t be explicitly decided this weekend when representatives of every state and soccer organization convene in Hawaii for the federation’s annual meeting, an event that doesn’t typically get a lot of attention. But with US Soccer at a spaghetti junction, still revamping at the grass roots while dealing with immediate issues on the men’s and women’s national teams, what happens in Hawaii may set the tone for the federation’s short-term and long-term future. Over the past 15 years, the federation has revved up sponsorship and marketing deals. Many budget items – both revenue and expenses – have roughly tripled since 2006. It has also abandoned its laissez-faire approach to youth soccer, stepping in with new programs and mandates. “Years ago, they made a big turn in trying to help promote the game in this country along with MLS,” said Peter Vermes, a Hall of Fame player and Sporting KC manager who served many years on the federation’s board. “In most respects, they’ve done a very good job – boys academy, girls academy, those things are highly important to the overall growth of the game. Not just growth in numbers but growth in quality.” This weekend, the federation is essentially asking its general membership, from state associations to board members, to sign on to change. The big item on the agenda: term limits for the president, vice president and independent directors, along with a new nomination process that allows time for background checks. Current elected officials would be allowed to run for one more term. But Sunil Gulati, president since 2006 and vice president for six years before that, has not decided whether to run again next year. So especially if the term limits are approved – a likely bet but not a sure one – would-be reformers should have a golden opportunity to step forward and claim leadership roles. Gulati’s tenure has coincided with massive leaps forward in soccer’s presence in the United States and the rise of new media, from Twitter to talk radio, that amplify and examine every aspect of the sport. In this diverse, argumentative nation of zealous soccer fans, Gulati’s seat is a warm one. Message boards and social media occasionally rage with a “Fire Gulati” sentiment, albeit often by those who don’t understand that the USSF president is an elected volunteer. More credibly, longtime soccer writer Steven Goff of the Washington Post heaped praise upon Gulati but called upon him to depart at the end of his term next year, mostly to bring fresh ideas and faces into the fed’s leadership. Yet within US Soccer, the presidency hasn’t been disputed since 1998, when Bob Contiguglia defeated Larry Monaco with 57.6% of the vote. The same year, Gulati lost the race for vice president to John Motta by 11 votes, 372 to 361. The federation then put the presidency and vice presidency on different electoral cycles, and Gulati won the seat from Motta – who has since returned to the board via the Adult Council – in 2000. The rest of the decade saw a series of unopposed elections: Contiguglia in 2002, Gulati in 2004, Gulati to the presidency in 2006, three independent directors (Carlos Cordeiro, Fabian Nunez and Donna Shalala) in 2007 and 2008. Mike Edwards was appointed to fill Gulati’s VP seat when Gulati moved to the presidency, and he was unopposed in 2008. The vice presidency was contested in 2012 and in 2016, when Cordeiro ousted Edwards in an election in which the candidates could hardly stop praising each other. But Gulati was unopposed in 2010 and 2014. Cordeiro, Nunez and Shalala are the only independent directors the board has had, though with Cordeiro now in the VP slot, this year’s general meeting will elect a replacement. And it’s not that the federation has put up barriers to running for office. The new term-limit bylaw also includes a requirement that presidential and vice presidential candidates must declare 60 days before an election and submit to a background check. In previous general meetings, the nomination process has been as open as the Planet Express election in the Futurama episode in which Fry nominates “That Guy” to run the company. But few people run for office. That’s not to say the general membership is placid. The National Council, whose proceedings are transcribed for all to see on US Soccer’s site, is rarely content to simply rubber-stamp everything the Board of Directors has done or said, often shooting down suggested bylaws or raising contentious – often tedious – arguments from the floor. The 2003 meeting had angry state representatives warning of “democratic paralysis” and “anarchy and revolution” as several proposed bylaws were voted down. “Our relationship with the state associations has changed dramatically,” Gulati said. “It’s become more positive. The federation has more resources and can accommodate a lot of things.” In the wake of the 2003 uprising, US Soccer embarked on a governance review. The general membership agreed with slashing the board from an awkward group of 40-some people down to its current size of 16, mirroring similar moves in other US sports federations. But in 2005, the members voted against a term-limit proposal. The federation has gone through another governance review and will try again this year. So will one of its members, who has proposed a separate bylaw change with a slightly different set of term restrictions. Whether the members vote yea or nay, they will one day have to replace Gulati. That won’t be easy. Not just because Gulati’s tenure has been successful by many measures – MLS continues to grow despite ever-increasing competition on TV from foreign leagues, the men’s team has had its share of successes, and the women’s team has won more trophies. Gulati’s role and influence within Fifa have grown. The other difficulty: US Soccer’s presidency is neither the easiest nor most rewarding job. As presidents of other organizations (or countries) often find, the tedium can easily outweigh the glamor. The board has evolved from an operational role to a strategic one, but it still has to play referee in arcane disputes among state associations and sort out issues with US leagues, at times including indoor soccer and futsal. The president is unpaid, despite occasional calls from the membership to compensate him or her. Gulati has mixed feelings about it. Others don’t. “I think it should be a paid position,” Vermes said. “There’s so much time required.” And it’s a position that invites scrutiny. The federation’s site, in addition to the National Council transcripts, currently has 10 years of financial reports, board minutes dating back to 1999, federation bylaws and policies, detailed committee reports ahead of the annual meeting, etc. “Because of technology, there’s been increased access to those sorts of documents, and we’ve been conscious about making as many things public as we got,” Gulati said. And these documents show the federation is both bringing in and spending much more money than it was a decade ago. At the 2001 general meeting, new US Soccer secretary-general Dan Flynn – still the organization’s top paid staff member – showed how the federation turned a projected $2.2m deficit into a small surplus with a hiring freeze and a slashed travel budget. That’s not an issue today. Gulati, though, measures the success of the federation – which he stresses is not personal success – not by money but by national team results, the growth of Development Academies in youth soccer, governance reform, and the growing awareness and appreciation of the sport. “We’re a nonprofit corporation, so I don’t measure our success by increased revenues,” Gulati said. “I measure our success by what those revenues can do. We have a bigger budget and bigger expenditures. But we don’t measure what we get on our assets, but what happens on the field and the growth of the game.” Still, the federation faces some restrictions. Financially, US Soccer has to meet all the criteria to remain a nonprofit. US law also requires the fed to give athletes (current or recently retired) at least a 20 percent share of voting rights, which works well on the board but leads to unusual weighting in general membership meetings, with the handful of athletes in attendance each wielding the voting power of many state associations. Nor can the federation easily split its duties as amateur overseer and pro developer. “In accordance with the Sports Act and the requirements of Fifa and the United States Olympic Committee, the Federation shall be autonomous in its governance of the sport of soccer in the United States and may not delegate its governance responsibilities,” reads Bylaw 105(1), which is not slated for an overhaul at this weekend’s meeting. “That’s what federations do all over the world,” Vermes said. “It goes with the territory. They’re directly connected to Fifa.” Indeed, England’s Football Association, the original soccer federation, bears some similarities to US Soccer. It has representatives of the Premier League and the Football League. And those who complain that US Soccer is run by too many people from business or academia may be surprised to learn the FA’s chairman is the former CEO of Cable & Wireless, and its executive director is the former CEO of United Biscuits. USA Basketball also resembles US Soccer, at least since pro players entered international basketball competitions in the late 80s. The NBA directly appoints some board members in addition to the required athlete reps. And the federation simply can’t be the top-down authority over all soccer in such a diverse country in which the game has grown in fits and starts. The Development Academies have been controversial, especially with the new Girls Development Academy treading into the same space long occupied by US Club Soccer’s ECNL. Recent mandates on youth soccer, a rare effort by the federation to dictate how the youth game is governed, caused the USA’s often-warring youth groups to form a Youth Council Technical Working Group, which still meets several times a year, to demand more of a say. When it comes to promotion and relegation between pro leagues, a favorite topic of soccer pundits but rarely discussed in US Soccer’s board and meeting minutes, Gulati sees the federation being willing to accept it but not impose it. “It’s not the rules of the game that people came in on,” Gulati said. “When you buy into a particular structure, that’s what you expect the rules to be. … But if the leagues or a league wants to engage, we’re happy to be support that.” Indeed, innovation can happen elsewhere. That’s by design. The federation has a lot of jobs. Starting or running a league is one it does only reluctantly, such as the combined NASL/USL second-division league of several years ago or the infrastructure for the NWSL after two previous women’s leagues failed. But the federation still serves vital roles beyond being an administrator of soccer. It hires and fires national team coaches. It is taking more responsibility in developing the next generations of players. It runs coaching education programs. And it generally tries to stop the contentious soccer organizations in this country from destroying each other. So when will the next leader step forward? |