Column: U.S. Soccer Federation on Donald Trump: ‘We’ll work with him’
The U.S. Soccer Federation hasn’t decided if it will bid for the rights to stage the 2026 World Cup. And if it does, federation President Sunil Gulati said Friday, he hasn’t decided if he’ll invite Mexico or Canada — or both — to join him in a joint bid.
What Gulati and the federation have decided, however, is that Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s presidential election won’t influence them one way or the other.
“He’s the president of the United States on Jan. 20 and we’ll work with him,” Gulati said in a wide-ranging, hour-long interview before the U.S. lost to Mexico in its first match of the final 10-game round of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
That may not be easy. The federation has close ties to high-ranking Democratic figures including former President Bill Clinton, who helped steer the unsuccessful bid for the 2022 World Cup, and Donna Shalala, a member of U.S. Soccer’s board of directors and president of the Clinton Foundation. Plus, last summer Gulati said he thought a joint World Cup bid would be more easily won with Hillary Clinton in the White House.
That likely leaves the federation with some fence-mending to do with the incoming administration.
“We’ll develop those relationships,” Gulati said. “In the White House today and in the White House on [Jan. 21] there will be people in the building that love the game. And that will be true in any administration for the foreseeable future.”
One of those people could be the president-elect himself since Trump played a season of varsity soccer in high school. But first, Gulati said, U.S. Soccer has to decide if it wants the 2026 tournament, something it won’t do until FIFA settles on a format for the event and new rules for bidding on it.
On other topics, Gulati said:
-- Juergen Klinsmann is likely to remain as coach of the men’s national team through the current World Cup qualifying cycle. “We’ve not had a coach in 27 years that started World Cup qualifying and not finished World Cup qualifying,” he said. “And I expect that to be the case here.” However, Klinsmann’s tenure, which began in 2011, figures to end after the 2018 tournament in Russia. “There are very, very few coaches that do third terms anywhere in the world,” Gulati said. “But let’s see where things are.”
-- He is confident the federation will reach agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement with the women’s national team players, though he declined to provide details. The CBA expires on Dec. 31. Gulati also said he is happy with Coach Jill Ellis, who signed a new contract after winning the Women’s World Cup last summer then stumbled to a quarterfinal exit in last summer’s Rio Olympics.
-- U.S. Soccer is studying proposed term limits of three four-year terms for all board members, including its president. The proposals, to be voted next year, will likely include language allowing any current board member turned out by the new bylaws to serve one more term. Gulati, USSF president since 2006, said he is uncertain whether he will stand for election to a fourth term.
-- The federation learned a lot from the way it handled Hope Solo in the wake of domestic-violence charges, saying it has “put in some additional measures after the fact.” Gulati resisted calls to suspend Solo from last summer’s Women’s World Cup after two criminal charges were filed against her in 2014. “Would we do some other different things in the process? The answer’s yes. We learned from that.”
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Gulati also said he is pleased with reforms recently enacted by FIFA and CONCACAF, which are intended to increase transparency and accountability in soccer’s global and regional governing bodies. But, he added, “there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Part of that work will include settling on a format for the 2026 World Cup, then writing new rules for the bidding process to avoid the widespread suspicion of corruption and conspiracy that marred the vote awarding the 2018 tournament to Russia and the 2022 event to Qatar.
New FIFA President Gianni Infantino wants to expand the World Cup field from the current 32 countries to 40 or even 48 teams by 2026, which would add to the complexity of staging the event. If the U.S. were to bid for the event, Gulati said it could go it alone or pursue a joint tournament with either Mexico, Canada or both.
“We have some very different opinions, even within our own board, about that,” he said. “About feasibility, about desirability … for a joint bid.”
Teaming with Mexico could be difficult under a Trump administration given the president-elect’s rhetoric during the campaign, when he referred to Mexican immigrants as drug smugglers and rapists and promised to build a wall along the border and force Mexico to pay for it.
“A bid, if it should happen, relies critically on the government in a number of areas,” Gulati said.
“We’ll work with him, as will be true for people around the world. How that relationship develops with other world leaders and how that affects U.S. foreign policy or the views of the U.S. remains to be seen. But it’s not going to dissuade us or persuade us to bid. Perceptions matter for sure. But those will be developed in the months to come.”
