This Isn’t Just What the Doctor Ordered
It’s time to tell some unpleasant truths, never mind the bruised egos, the rocked boats or the burned bridges. The plain fact is, soccer in the United States is awash in myths.
One of those myths is that U.S. Soccer controls the sport in this country.
On Friday morning, at a fancy hotel in San Francisco, S. Robert Contiguglia was elected to a second four-year term as president of U.S. Soccer. Now it is very likely that not one reader in 10,000 has the slightest idea who S. Robert Contiguglia is, and what is more, they don’t care to know.
Within the soccer community, however, “Dr. Bob” is recognized as a decent, caring, 60-year-old man who probably is far better suited to being the Denver kidney specialist that he is than being leader of the largest and potentially most powerful soccer federation in this hemisphere.
Because, make no mistake, U.S. Soccer has that potential.
If it didn’t, the big-money boys would not be worming their way deeper and deeper into its woodwork.
The federation will tell you that Contiguglia was reelected unopposed and by unanimous consent, all of which is correct. But it wasn’t because “Dr. Bob,” bless his heart, was so beloved that people clamored for his return.
There were those who wanted to run against him. At least one of them was shot down by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, which--right or wrong--carries far more clout these days than U.S. Soccer and Major League Soccer combined.
Another was Alan Rothenberg, Contiguglia’s predecessor and the man who turned U.S. Soccer from an amateur operation into a halfway organized federation, as well as founding MLS. The fact that Rothenberg grew rich in the process is neither here nor there.
In the end, though, he thought better of it and kept his hat out of the ring. What role, if any, AEG played in that decision is unknown.
So it’s “Dr. Bob” for another four years.
That will be welcome news in many quarters, because Contiguglia, honest to a fault, is not going to make any waves. Those rose-colored glasses were made specifically for him. He sees the best in everyone, no matter how odious some might be.
The most odious are right on his doorstep, but Contiguglia said Friday that he and U.S. Soccer will continue to support the leadership of CONCACAF, the 38-member confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean nations that operates--at considerable and unnecessary expense--out of Trump Tower in New York.
CONCACAF, not to mention some of its marketing partners, is viewed by many in the media on both sides of the Atlantic as a corrupt and morally bankrupt organization, one that is sorely in need of fumigation.
But don’t look for U.S. Soccer to play a leading role in cleaning up the confederation. It’s not going to happen.
“I think we lead by example in U.S. Soccer,” Contiguglia said Friday.
“I think most people would say that we are a very moral and ethical organization.”
Contiguglia pointed out that U.S. Soccer supported Jack Warner, a Trinidadian, in Warner’s election as CONCACAF’s president, and Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF’s general secretary, as well as backing Joseph “Sepp” Blatter in his successful reelection bid as FIFA president “for the contributions he has made to the game.”
“And we have a very good working relationship with them,” Contiguglia sad.
“Chuck was here [in San Francisco Friday], as a matter of fact, at our convention and ran the election.
“We have a strong relationship with CONCACAF, and it’s always been very above board and very professional.”
Be that as it may, there is an almost obscene amount of money to be made in soccer these days by those who control such events as the World Cup, and when those in charge use that money to perpetuate their time in power--as Blatter is alleged to have done with the support of Warner, Blazer and others--surely it is time to distance the U.S. from the unseemly mess.
Blatter’s reelection in late May was never seriously in doubt, not with the feeble candidate--Issa Hayatou of Cameroon--that was pitted against him, but that did not stop England’s Football Assn. from taking the moral high ground and opposing Blatter’s reelection.
Unfortunately, U.S. Soccer took the opposite tack--the moral low ground.
Contiguglia went so far as to endorse Blatter in an open letter released in New York one week before the election at a time when daily revelations were being made about unscrupulous and possibly illegal behavior within FIFA.
“When we put aside all the negative rhetoric, histrionics and embarrassing behavior, we can come to only one conclusion--President Blatter should continue as FIFA president,” Contiguglia’s letter stated, going on to praise the insufferable Blatter as “an icon of humanitarianism.”
This is the same Blatter who since his reelection has systematically set about purging FIFA of anyone who dares to contradict him; the same
Blatter who has yet to explain how one of his most ardent supporters, Asian Football Confederation president and FIFA vice president Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar, was embroiled in a black-market ticket scandal during the 2002 World Cup; the same Blatter who is getting wealthier by the day while spouting nonsense about how his “Goal Program” is helping the underprivileged soccer nations of the world.
What the “Goal Program” is doing is enriching Blatter’s supporters in Third World countries who are only too happy to accept free money from FIFA in exchange for a vote or two every four years.
If Contiguglia doubts that, he can check with certain African soccer federations where the grants from FIFA have disappeared down a sinkhole without the countries’ players, coaches or referees getting so much as a look at it.
So much for the “icon of humanitarianism.”
No, the sad fact of the matter is that U.S. Soccer is in the Blatter bag.
Perhaps it would not have made any difference who was elected president of U.S. Soccer on Friday, but there are many American fans who yearn for the day when their own federation and confederation show some real leadership and, more to the point, moral fiber.
