I see bits and pieces of this topic in other threads and thought it might be useful to start a thread specifically on the mechanisms by which Gulait might leave office. 1. Vote in February 2018 Grant Wahl did a good job summarizing a lot of the information on this path here: https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/13/sunil-gulati-us-soccer-president-future-candidates-election What I find particularly interesting is the voting weights: Youth Council: 25.8% Adult Council: 25.8% Professional Council: 25.8% Athletes Council: 20% Miscellaneous: 2.6% I'd be interested to know more about who represents these councils and what might by the motivation for their vote for/against Gulati. And given that, who could emerge as a credible challenger. Probably not Waldo or Lalas. But who? Also, it's unclear to me what is the specific deadline for a new candidate to emerge (other than Grant's comment "less than two months") and when specifically in February the vote will be. 2. Board removes him "for cause" Hat tip to BigSoccer poster Chad for noting the existence of this mechanism in another thread (while not making any prediction as to whether it would actually succeed) and observing that "for cause" is not defined in the bylaws. My two cents: Probably unlikely to succeed. 2/3 vote is a big hurdle. On top of that, "for cause" in the corporate world is traditionally something with a high hurdle that goes beyond simply poor performance in your job. Things like stealing from the corporation, taking bribes, or sexual harassment. Still, if the board is unhappy enough, who knows what could happen under this mechanism? 3. He is persuaded not to run This one is the most interesting to me. Sunil has not yet stated whether he will run in February. There's a lot of money sloshing around MLS and US Soccer now, and the people who control those purse strings (corporate sponsors, MLS owners, media rights holders) could influence things here. Are they coordinated enough to come together and influence this outcome? Do they favor the "devil you know" in Sunil vs an unknown alternative?
He develops a sense of honor and resigns now. Even if by announcing he is not running again, which clears the runway for other candidates to be vetted.
Presumably to retire to his farm in order to raise flying pigs. When he's not going ice skating in hell.
There's no way he's leaving voluntarily (on such a down note) and there's less than zero chance the Board, mostly hand-picked by him, is voting him out, and certainly not for cause. So he'll have to be teased out. Put/keep him in charge of the 2026 WC bid, assuming that's what he would like (a lifetime achievement award, sort of a bookend to the 1994 Cup). Might be pressured out, but I'm not sensing the pressure (beyond a few of us letting off steam here).
Gulati is completely qualified to be appointed as US Ambassador for a country like Bhutan. It's the honorable solution, and as bonus there's an actual upside to the country's diplomatic corps being left half-empty.
loses to Landon: https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/10/18/landon-donovan-us-soccer-president-sunil-gulati-election
Kyle Martino on his last podcast went into depth on this situation. He's considered running. What rules out the option for him is it's an unpaid position. He can't risk his family. Sunil is comfortable as he gets 300K/Y for being on the FIFA council and likely gets compensated thru SUM which we know little about. But Martino said all the right things. His three main reasons for wanting to run were: 1) A complete outside audit of USSF/SUM and the inner-workings they hold under wraps. A 2B for profit company we know next to nothing about. 2) Confronting pay to play and putting soccer goals under every basketball hoop in every major city. 3) Pro/rel. But I get the impression a number of ex-players are furious and thinking the same way. Landon, Holden, Keller, Twellman, Wynalda, etc. So it becomes who can afford to go into an unpaid position. Landon and Wynalda. Wynalda is presumably going to announce a run in the next couple days. I'd fully support Wynalda. Need an outsider. Need someone who wants to change the system. Need someone not beholden to the establishment.
jon, never mind the question I asked in the other thread. I know which Martino. He's an outsider, sure, but he's also a maniac and pretty idiotic. Whatever we think of Trump's positions on the issues, but he's an outsider and a maniac and he can't even get the Republicans to agree on a tax cut bill. Tax cuts!!! That's like a Democrat not being able to get his party behind free abortions for illegal immigrant lesbians!!! Wynalda is a chaos agent. That is decidedly NOT what is needed.
This is sort of what i was getting at in the other thread regarding Waldo. I didn't want to invoke the comparision you did out of sheer cowardice, but it is one that occurred to me. I thought "pessimistic Jurgen" was safer.
Wynalda is nothing like Trump once you get past "outsider". Chaos agent is simply rhetoric. But this landscape could use a good serving of chaos, a shakeup.
Wynalda is a complete idiot who would torpedo the business side of running the Fed, which is a really crtiical part of the job. It's not just hiring and firing coaches.
Mentioned it elsewhere, but the USSF needs to a) make it a paid position and b) reach out to Oliver Luck.
To the extent that this whole electorate is on the SUM payroll, one wonders what we're even talking about here.
Is it? I thought that was why we were paying "CEO" Dan Flynn $680,000 per year. If it is such a big, critical, important job, how has Sunil had time to handle it while juggling 6 other paid jobs? Whoever we elect I just want transparency: http://www.soccernomics-agency.com/?p=973 Second, US Soccer exempts from its conflict of interest policy “any constituent or affiliated member entities of U.S. Soccer.” This is hugely problematic because an affiliate of US Soccer is Major League Soccer, which contains a for-profit marketing arm called Soccer United Marketing. The opportunities for conflict are many. For instance, according to the New York Daily News, in addition to being US Soccer president since 2006, Gulati was “also a founder, board member and deputy commissioner of MLS, and a member of SUM’s board of directors.” The actual inter-related workings of SUM, MLS and US Soccer are opaque, to put it mildly. We do not know if SUM provides any compensation to US Soccer officials or if any of these individuals have an equity stake in SUM. We also do not know much about the business relationships between SUM, MLS owners, sponsors, vendors, clients and others with a financial interest in decisions made by SUM. That includes US Soccer officials who oversee the organization’s non-profit functions. Oh wait... these same people are the voters? I surrender.
Martino made a good point on his podcast. When Sunil took over and this was during the time before MLS really exploded, we were ranked top 10 and had made the WC QF's. Ever since Sunil took over and while revenue for USSF/MLS/SUM has skyrocketed, we've gone downhill. We're now ranked 27 and aren't going to the WC. Down a goal vs T&T and needing a goal, we brought on Kellyn Acosta. There's clearly something wrong. Our landscape has an issue with putting profit over the game. As Reyna said, we're expanding, not progressing. So put a soccer guy in place. Someone who lives and breaths the game, not corporate profiteers. And, maybe this is just a crazy idea but, hire an accountant for the financials. We need a new vision, not number crunching for the continued profit of a few over the game at large. Profit, profit, profit, it's all anyone seems concerned with. Meanwhile all this profit with an econ professor leading the helm has only seen us getting worse and worse. We need an outsider because the establishment has created a vehicle of outside profit in SUM and they're going to try to protect the vehicle at all costs. That for me is the most important factor. Everything else stems from that. So break it up and reboot.
Amateur, non-insider analysis* below. Tell me where I'm wrong... For the vote in February that could potentially re-elect Sunil to another term as president, over 50% of the vote comes from these two groups: Youth Council: 25.8% Adult Council: 25.8% Far as I can tell based on info from the US Soccer web site, the Youth Council appears to be the pay-to-play youth club soccer organization, and the Adult Council is for adult rec league amateurs such as myself (plus US Open Cup tournament). https://www.ussoccer.com/about/affiliates/youth-council https://www.ussoccer.com/about/affiliates/adult-council If I have that right, then over 50% of the vote comes from organizations who really don't spend a lot of time thinking about the USMNT. If anything, Youth Council in particular would see a new leader as a potential threat to the entrenched pay-to-play paradigm. The remaining vote, less than 50%, comes from: Professional Council: 25.8% (MLS, NWSL, NASL, USL) Athletes Council: 20% (players association? not clear) Miscellaneous: 2.6% These might be more aligned to addressing USMNT and development needs, but they are also more likely not to vote with a common voice. Issues like pro/rel and splitting the SUM revenue pie probably divide this bloc more than unite it. Last observation. Why the hell do Pro Council + Athletes Council only have 46% of the vote, and Youth Council + Adult Council have 51%? That's f'ed up. Seems like 80/20 would be a better allocation, and 20 frankly strikes me as generous to the Youth + Adult constituencies. *Again, just a dude doing research on the internet here. Tell me where I'm wrong.
Gulatti won’t resign from his unpaid USSF gig until he gets re-elected to the fifa gravy train (ahem) council, which four year term expires at the end of the year.