Choosing where to invest money in developmental programs does seem like a soccer decision. It isn't like Berhalter responded, "We don't have the money for a new program." He instead questioned the investment in soccer terms, i.e., whether it was more important as a technical matter to have a goalkeeper program than a forwards program. That's outside his expertise.
I'm curious on what grounds you concluded that the money had to come from somewhere else in the operating budget?
Wasn't Berhalter COO at the time? That's more than a fundraising job. Flynn was CEO which typically involves more external relations that the COO.
I can't find anything from three years ago but the 2018 org chart has him as chief commercial and strategy officer. https://cdn.ussoccer.com/-/media/pr...83c086d&hash=47CFBF6F00C7BBFD30AC00964C39B4A1 They seem to have gotten rid of the COO position. Maybe his job was split up? But the thing is, if Berhalter didn't have didn't have direct responsibilities in this, then the entire complaint seems to be that someone from the non-technical side expressed an opinion about something technical. Not that he stopped it from happening, just that he "pushed back" against Ramos. To me, Ramos sounds overly sensitive if he's objecting to a question. At some point, non-technical people will be in the room with the technical people when final decisions are made since money is involved. Particularly since this was during the time before Earnie, who now would be the person to represent the technical side to the non-technical people.
Looks like we're on different sides of the "expressed an opinion". I don't think a non-technical guy should be opining on the other side and given the plentiful evidence of the insular nature of USSF, I don't think that Jay would be a guy who simply "expresses an opinion". YMMV
Jay has functionally been the CEO for years. It seems like many are lined up against him being actually named the CEO. As usual with Cordeiro, you can see him as resisting and looking for another candidate or just as easily seeing him delaying and waiting for a good moment to name Jay. But time has only grown and hardened the anti-Jay contingent. It has to be very bad if guys on the USSF gravy train, or could get back on, will go public with complaints. If anyone else is named CEO, I don't see how Jay remains. If he does, he will probably be a malcontent and sabotage the new CEO. But his own ego will probably mean he has to resign, especially as he has probably let Carlos know he will leave if not appointed. Can they get him a better job with SUM? That might be bad optics (if not a COI) if the head of SUM is brothers with the USMNT head coach. Maybe like many before him, he will get a job with the Krafts. They are in their own bubble, but I think if Jay was going to be the CEO, he would already have been named. But we saw with his brother, the long, "search" could just be a PR move.
Peter Mellor was the Goalkeeping Director up until (iirc) 2005. They never replaced him and coincidentally the country has struggled to produce goalkeepers at Friedel/Keller/Howard's level since. Also, again, this is just the standard for the international game. It's not going above and beyond. Get other positional coaches, sure, whatever, but the US was doing something well and when the person who oversaw its success stepped down, they never replaced him.