A lot to unpack here. First off SUM is a for profit, private corporation. The revenue it generates goes to expanses, most of which are salaries to people and the profit goes to the owners; Don Garber, Kraft, etc. Moreover this is a discussion about how the very same revenue you are referencing is being diverted FROM a non profit USSF, TO a for profit in SUM. So no, you cannot give SUM credit for FC Dallas's academy and specific individual players ffs. In the absence of SUM there would have been other alternatives, not nothing. Or at the very least SUM could have and should have gone away after it's purported initial purpose was served, or at the VERY least, had the process open to competitive bidding on the USSF side and National team and MLS games separated long since. The only reason none of that happened is greed. There are individual people, not just corporations and entities, that are directly profiting from the incestuous relationships between USSF/SUM/MLS/CONCACAF. Copa America was successful. $46 million was reported as USSF profit, USSF made a lot of money. Did they make as much money as they should have? Where did the rest of the money go? Who individually (corporations are not people), profited? https://leastthing.blogspot.com/2018/04/seven-questions-for-us-soccer-on-ca2016.html In 2014 the US Soccer Federation, a non-profit charity registered in New York, created a subsidiary non-profit related to the hosting of the Copa America Centenario soccer tournament. Specifically, on 29 October 2014 the USSF set up a single-member LLC, called The CA2016 Local Organizing Committee LLC. The CA2016 reported $190 million in revenue in 2016 (specifically $189,681,375). CA2016 reported providing a grant of $64,941,805 to the USSF (Schedule I, Part ID, d). USSF 2017 IRS 990 (PDF) reported receiving $50,000,000 from CA2016 (p. 68, Part V (1)). Question #1: Why is there a $14,941,805 discrepancy between the two numbers? CA2016 employed 24 people in 2016 and reported $5,144,749 in compensation, salaries and wages (IRS 990, Part IX, lines 5 and 7) plus $548,815 in other employee benefits (IRS 990, Part IX, line 9). This results in an average pay of $237,232 per employee. Question #2: What were each of the 24 employees actually paid? CA2016 reported “fees for services” paid to non-employees of $15,403,641 (IRS 990, Part IX, line 11a, “Management”) and $46,858,610 (IRS 990, Part IX, line 11g, “Other”). Of this latter amount Schedule O explains that $31,192,095 was for “service agreement total fees” and $15,506,572 was for “hosting agreement total fees.” Question #3: To whom (organizations and individuals) were the $15.4m in management fees paid? Question #4: To whom (organizations and individuals) were the $31.2m in service agreement fees paid? Question #5: To whom (organizations and individuals) were the $15.5 million in hosting agreement fees paid? There is plenty more in the article, like $16,328,000 in travel expenses. It just seems simple to me that at this point, with the size of revenues, the security of the domestic league and the necessary apparatus and organization to run all of this that we have well outgrown the need for this intertwining of relationships and interests and the federation and the league can and should be separated, or at the VERY least, real conflict of interest safeguards put in place.
So then the solution is maybe a committee to prevent conflicts of interest? What would the process to put in place real conflict of interest safeguards entail exactly? Turns out that would go through the Nominating and Governance Committee at USSF, guess who chairs the Nominating and Governance committee responsible for trivial things like conflicts of interest? The Don. https://medium.com/@joshwesterman/ussf-nominating-and-governance-committee-537ed7c0a427 In fact, the Nominating and Governance Committee of USSF’s Board of Directors looks like a total sham. Not only has the former President of USSF served on the Committee, but the Committee has been chaired by Board member Don Garber, who happens to be the head of both Major League Soccer (MLS) and Soccer United Marketing (SUM). Respectively, MLS is a league whose business depends on USSF sanctioning it as division 1 and benefits from USSF de-sanctioning it’s competition at the lower levels, and SUM is a marketing business owned by the MLS team owners that happens to derive significant revenue from USSF relationships and also happens to be the source of roughly half of USSF’s revenue. Think about that. Don Garber is without a doubt the least independent or impartial (i.e. the most conflicted) member of USSF’s Board, and yet he has been installed as the head of a key committee of the Board that is somehow trusted to put the interests of the organization above all else. In the words of Taylor Twellman, “What are we doing?!” And if you’re wondering if USSF is receiving fair value in the SUM relationship, don’t worry because the Committee is also responsible for reviewing conflicts of interest of the directors and for implementing processes to deal with them. Oh, and from USSF’s side of things, its top employee, well, the Committee is in charge of his performance evaluation and for setting his compensation. That’s right, Section 5 of Bylaw 431 puts Garber (who is absolutely conflicted with respect to SUM) in charge of navigating the SUM transaction on USSF’s behalf and of setting the compensation of the USSF employee with responsibility for negotiating USSF’s side of the deal against Don’s own company. That’s marvelous.
SUM and MLS are separate companies. What's the job of US Soccer? Grow soccer in the States. What's the job of SUM? Sell soccer. COI's isn't unlawful or a crime, there are many examples of COI's in business and also involving leagues, domestic marketing companies and football federations.
I had quoted you, not posted that in a vacuum. You admission that a clear conflict of interest exists is a nice beginning though. The point is that this acknowledged conflict of interest makes a mockery of the pretense that there was any open bidding process and word salad like this: Of course the USSF committee responsible for dealing with any conflicts of interest is headed by the guy so conflicted that he still has to recuse himself from half of all votes, The Don.
If US Soccer had its own in-house marketing company they wouldn't outsource its marketing expertise to another separate domestic marketing company, but we all know that the federation is incapable of doing just that. I rather they don't. A non-profit organization can't sell soccer to fans without financial kickback and changing its legal status. The fact that SUM provides US Soccer WC, US Open Cup, CONCACAF Gold Cup, CCL coverage to the fan with no questions asked is a good thing for us. Why no one else wanted the WC rights is anyone's guess...
why aren’t the soliciting bids from multiple parties? I don’t see why what happened back before smart phones has any impact on today. as discussed in other threads, MLS is a ruthless negotiator who pushes its advantage to an extreme in almost every single instance. The thought that the original and recent SUM deals weren’t / aren’t extremely one sided in their favor is bald-faced laughable.
What revenue is being diverted exactly? $30M every year gets deposited into the USSF's budget regardless of how well or poor the national teams perform. If the USSF had their own in house marketing department, they would have to divert a portion of those revenues to PAY for the in house team..... That's not exactly an inexpensive endeavor. Actually, yes we can. Lamar Hunt, and now his son are part of SUM correct? FC Dallas' academy was started when? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that occurred after 2006....Running a Pro Sports team isn't exactly inexpensive, and there are still MLS teams that aren't turning a profit. It's safe to say that at least some of the money from SUM went to help pay for the FCD academy. Open the process to competitive bidding? What process?? Who are SUM's competitors exactly? Also, you talk of greed. Why do you think Ricardo Silva and Rocco Commisso wanted the USMNT TV rights? So they could sell them for a huge profit for themselves!!! Relavant Sports? Please, Steven Ross is only concerned with his own bank account and not growing the game in the US. Like your Portland Timbers.... Is the USSF capable of running an event the size and scope of Copa America? Are they capable of selling the tickets, marketing the event, etc.? Because let's be honest here, clearly Concacaf and Conmebol didn't feel they could handle it so they outsourced it first to Traffic.....then they turned it over to SUM (selling sponsorships) & IMG (Media) when Traffic was caught up in the FIFA scandal, and their CEO was indicted (on short notice). And oh by the way...IMG handles the media rights for MLS and the USSF as SUM's media distribution partner... What exactly has the USSF done with that money exactly? https://www.sportspromedia.com/inte...ption_delays_and_the_race_to_sell_sponsorship
You can't be serious. They are separate because they have different letterhead? The same owners. The same chief executive.
Soccer United Marketing, LLC and Major League Soccer, LLC are separate entities yes. Look, leagues and football federations are intertwined together. They work together, and yes that means working with a separate, but MLS-related company. You're acting if the whole partnership is either criminal or sinister. The CEO of German Bundesliga (DFL) is also the VP of the German Football Association (DFB) - no one is complaining about that. Why's that?
Because the Germans aren't leaving better players off their roster and not qualifying for World Cups.
I agree that there are massive conflicts of interest (Don Garber's close involvement in all 3 organizations, particularly--as laid out by @sXeWesley). It's incredibly wrong, specifically, that he chairs the committee that selects and determines the pay of the person that negotiates with him and SUM, and that has to end. But this doesn't then mean that SUM or the Don chooses rosters, or is able to insist on certain roster makeup. USSF needs to remove the Don from that position, at the very least. But we can't blame poor roster choices on anyone but the coach.
Oh I see, you're still bitter about Couva and using MLS/SUM as an excuse to scapegoat. Did you know Italy and the Netherlands didn't qualify as well? Their FAs are dependent with their national leagues. That's pretty much the end of the discussion, honestly. But hey, don't look at the generational gap between 1954 to 1986 when the USMNT didn't qualify for the World Cup while having a top division professional league, and at one point collaborated with US Soccer so that they could reach the World Cup.
Per wiki, the DFL is responsible for That's makes for quite a different set up when compared to the USSF/MLS.
nothing is more sinister then another loss from a slow-ass Bradley getting burned. But, Garber being the head of the Conflict of Interest unit within USSF, with his 50 positions, now that's a close second.
The "MLS / SUM conspiracy" is just the latest in a long line of narratives to obfuscate the real reason the USMNT performed terribly from 2015 - 2018. The crowd that irrationally blames MLS for everything jumped on the NASL lawsuit as some kind of smoking gun and "conflict of interest" has become a buzzword even though what everyone is really describing is extortion.
If I gave a damn about Italy or Netherlands, I would post in their forum. The USSF and MLS should work together but has the relationship become too one sided and detrimental? I would say yes. The popularity of the sport has changed quite a bit since then, no?
I agree that the USSF or Garber doesn’t dictate roster selections directly. Where there is undo influence that leads to obvious MLS preference is in their hiring practices. They not only prefer candidates who spout the party line (Arena’s spoken words followed by his actions) but if you are actually hired, you know that your bosses want things a certain way so the coach naturally makes decisions to please his superiors. again, MLS and Garber are ruthless in pressing any advantage that they have in almost every situation presented to them. I think it’s obvious that MLS clearly wants heavy league representation on the USMNT and would not be pleased if none of the starters were from MLS. The thought that they wouldn’t take every opportunity to tilt the table towards them is laughable as they're shown their true nature time and time again. Doesn’t mean they dictate lineups but their structural influence is pretty evident as we’ve seen under arena and Berhalter. to be clear, I have no problem with them pushing their agenda - we need strength at the USSF to push back hard in the instances where USSF and MLS interests aren’t aligned.
Oh I see, you're still mentioning things that happened 35-60 years ago as relevant and then mocking people for referencing something that happen a little more than 2 years ago. Irony is delicious. Thanks.