By "dissolve SUM" I mean "make USSF and MLS media rights independent of one another". If that just means spinning off the USSF stuff elsewhere and leaving the rest intact under the same name, fine. The other piece would be not allowing prominent figures to hold titles with both USSF and MLS simultaneously. I have no objection to the creation of a third-party media rights entity. It's the financial conflict of interest between US Soccer and MLS that concerns me.
Lalas and Donovan switching allegiances to Mexico. SUM hard at work. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ over loyalty. Disgusting.
1009460926104338433 is not a valid tweet id The second twitter link provides a thread. Just scroll down. 1009443833216561155 is not a valid tweet id
I'm not getting the timeline, in the last tweet it said that Gulati authorized this new contract now they're saying Cordeiro is going back on his word so that would imply that he made the decision. Perhaps Gulati made the decision towards the end of 2017 to take effect January 2018 and once Cordeiro got elected he promised to make a commercial rights committee but this was after the contract was renewed. The numbers certainly make the USSF look bad, although I want to see what all is included and what is net and gross.
The wording is: Per today’s released Audit, #USSF instead formally executed a new 4-year agreement with SUM in January 2018, effectively rendering Cordeiro’s promise void. Either he knew and everyone voted and followed another SUM bold faced weasel liar, or he's surrounded by SUM bold faced weasel liars who did this in a back room just prior to the election.
It's not even that, the money could potentially be so much bigger as the game grew. What the SUM cabal care about is control.
This is the single biggest story in US Soccer right now, and the media coverage is laughable. USSF is under non-profit law. SUM was created to operate outside the restrictions of that law. SUM receives all payments from sponsors and events, except Nike. SUM and USSF leadership agree how USSF will be paid. SUM extended Sunil's contract for the duration of Cordeiro's first term. Bottom line, Cordeiro is a puppet, doing the bidding of the SUM team, of which Sunil is a key member. Don Garber is another. So when MLS decides it is in their best to knock off a competitive league, guess who is behind the decision for USSF to remove its sanction from NASL? Gulati and Garber. When the women file a lawsuit on equal pay, guess who works behind the scenes to make sure USSF does not look like it has earned "too much" revenue? Gulati and Garber. Guess who is still in Cordeiro's, and Earnie Stewart's ears, when a new coach is hired? Gulati and Garber, who also happen to hold all the money. This entire game is a racket. I should not be, but cannot help but be amazed at how willfully the soccer journalists in this country ignore how dirty the team at the top continues to be.
The campaign for the next USSF presidential election should really already begin. Not as twitter sloganeering, but actually making the case to the councils that this could be so much more than a collection of grubby little fiefdoms running in circles.
Tell me about it. To be fair, Mark Zeigler was on SiriusXM FC talking mad smack after his piece came out about nothing changing since we missed the WC. Basically, he said it was common knowledge that Gulati is still blatantly involved in many decisions and heavily influential. These people do not have anyone to hold them accountable. I saw enough during the coverage and live stream of the "election" to know there are some critical problems with this organizational model. We are so far behind at the administrative level that it's very discouraging. It reminds me of land speculation. And Garber is eating all that up with the rest of the "investors."
It is a self perpetuating loop. Like a lot of Home Owners Associations, LOL. The "bosses"/insiders remain in charge, decide who can run and have all the votes. So it is impossible to force change by the mere "home owners", here the fans and everyone else involved with soccer in the US outside of the insiders running things. Unless the DOJ or Congress steps in, I don't see it changing. It may not be as corrupt as FIFA, but it is close. And we will not fulfill our potential until this cozy arrangement is broken up, so we are screweled. If the colossal failure this cycle doesn't force change, I fail to see what will.
Well I think as @Susaeta pointed out, they claim non-profit status and the potential for collusion or shifting money around to a for profit entity is very real. I won't pretend to know all of legal details, but it's clear enough to suspect that the close influence on SUM/MLS is major conflict of interest.
And btw, the Athlete's Council proudly voted for this after meeting with Garber's reps. I've also seen it reported, by that Kartik guy I believe, that in Garber's new contract he pockets 10% of every new expansion fee. So the 150M fees, he pockets a cool 15M. Each. And that guy has heavy say in the sanctioning of MLS' competitors.
It's a small thing, but I think it might help if folks like us treated pro/rel zealots as slightly misguided potential allies rather than an insane death cult. Have you seen the way they react to anyone with structural concerns over on the MLS boards? You can't afford to have the opposition be split in a war like this.
There are many incestuous and problematic relationships at the top of USSF, but lol @ the idea that the NASL is a victim here. I think part of the reason why people don't focus on the USSF structure as much is the hopelessness that anything could change. Even an abject WCQ failure didn't move the needle on governance.
This was posted in one of the tweets https://www.ussoccer.com/about/federation-services/resource-center/financial-information Click on the 2017 statements, page 16, (it doesn't copy) Basically, in 2017, revenue generated through the agreement with SUM was $27m, of which the USSF received $7m. They use "net" in an ambiguous way so what I'd like to know is how they measure revenue, earnings, etc. If basically SUM was paid 25m, kept 20m for itself and paid the USSF 7m, then that's a bad contract, even if the 7 was guaranteed and SUM took the risk. On the other hand, if the 7 is net of costs and the 25 is not, then it depends on what the costs were and how they were allocated. If they had to pay production costs on the TV or things like that and that comes out of the SUM portion then it's a different deal. I have no idea what the actual situation is. And for that matter, I had though that MLS rights and USMNT rights were sold together so I'm not sure how they allocated revenues to each.
Thanks. I’m traveling today so can’t take a deeper dive. Thought USSF was guaranteed $30m/year so perhaps it’s net but I agree that those numbers look bad on their face. Yet another reason that transparency would be great.
I think that's the other interpretation of this; that the 27 is net of SUM and that the 7 is an additional payment due since it's listed as a receivable. I don't know why they also listed the receivable for 2016 since that should have been paid. Thinking about it for a second, your interpretation is probably the more reasonable one since you wouldn't have to divide up the revenue to SUM by source. Given that, I don't know if the 27 is reasonable or not since we don't know the gross revenue.
Who knows? I think total revenues are $100m+ So even the $27 looks like a net number. Not sure why USSF is eating costs from SUM to make it a net number. What seems apparent is that the USSF is currently not interested in providing real clarity around its financial relationship with SUM.
Now that I look at it, the reason for the receivable is that their fiscal year ends in March, so the 7 is probably just the upcoming quarterly payment. 7x4 gives you around 27. Serves me right for not reading closely. (total revenue) - (costs of production) - (SUM cut) = $27m. and as you say, we don't know the middle parts.