Category: soccer

soccer

Time to transition to a post-FIFA world? (Or World Cup, anyway?)

Posted on by Beau Dure

The FIFA World Cup bid process long ago descended into farce long ago. BBC’s long-threatened Panorama investigation, released a couple of days before the Big Bid Vote, is stark but not really surprising. We’ve all known for a while that we’re not dealing with angels here.

The program is still worth watching. Andrew Jennings makes it entertaining — too much so, at times. And you can see two amusing highlights:

  1. Doesn’t the FIFA Executive Committee room look like some sort of bunker that should be populated by James Bond supervillains?
  2. A Dutch lawmaker’s accent turns “situation” into “shituation.”

I found Part 2, embedded below, slightly more interesting because it goes beyond the predictable funneling of money and into more worrying questions for nations that are bidding on the Cup. FIFA’s list of requirements is more demanding than Mariah Carey’s backstage rider and less amusing than the Foo Fighters’ version. (Or, if you’re really into hard-core efforts to turn backstage riders into comedy gold, Iggy Pop’s.)

The Dutch, Jennings tells us, now believe they would lose money on the World Cup. Suffice it to say the conversation I had a couple of months ago on World Cup economics seems less relevant given FIFA’s desire to take a hefty share of the reward and no share of the risk.

As the BBC report drew closer to airing, much public fretting was made of whether the report would hinder England’s 2018 bid. What’s curious isn’t that the oddsmakers such as William Hill have now installed Russia has an overwhelming favorite ahead of England but that they also think so little of the USA’s bid for 2022. That link currently has the USA at 9-2 behind Qatar (1-2) and Australia (5-2). These odds haven’t changed in the wake of the FIFA report showing the English and American bids in far better shape than their competitors.

If the oddsmakers are correct, the backlash will be immense. FIFA will undoubtedly give its reasons, but who would doubt that the scandal-ridden panel of bigwigs simply opted for states that don’t have pesky traditions of journalistic scrutiny? Should future bids be limited to autocratic countries only?

We might even have to think the unthinkable: Would soccer be better off without FIFA?

The best precedent for such a move would be in chess, where Garry Kasparov led a breakaway from international body FIDE that lasted more than a decade. The title is more or less unified now, though world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen has thrown up his hands and walked away from a World Championship qualifying process that makes CONCACAF’s World Cup cycle look simple. (The re-election of president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who brazenly shut up supporters of reform-minded former world champion Anatoly Karpov, couldn’t have given Carlsen or anyone else much reassurance about FIDE’s commitment to fairness.)

Kasparov and Carlsen, though, have had legitimate claims to be the best of their eras without FIDE’s stamp of approval. That seems more difficult in soccer, particularly when any sort of sanctioned soccer ultimately goes up to the chain to the big boys in Zurich.

National federations can’t do much to challenge FIFA. They’re ultimately the local branches of the international organizer.

Perhaps a more imposing challenge could come from the giant European clubs. If Manchester United, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and company decide to take their ball and go elsewhere, players and fans might be willing to go with them. But the issues that Jennings investigates have little to do with the club game, so the incentive is lacking.

And the USA might have a lot to lose if FIFA’s sanction is devalued. U.S. Soccer and its sanctioned first division, MLS, already face the occasional lawsuit accusing them of misusing “monopoly” powers. Courts have been kind so far, but that’s not because they’re cognizant of the soccer wars of the 1930s and 1980s that destroyed pro soccer in this country.

Reform will most likely have to come from within. That hasn’t seemed plausible in recent months. But that might be because everyone is playing nicely to try to gain favor for their World Cup bids. If the oddsmakers are right, the losing bid nations will have little to lose by speaking up. And we the fans may have plenty to gain if they do.

Addendum: I made it through this whole post and forgot to give a hat tip to The Shin Guardian, which raises a couple of questions that show the uncomfortable position the USA bid is in. Like a cyclist blowing away the field in the drug scandal-ridden Tour de France, the winner of this contest will be asked whether the win was legitimate. Not sure I agree with notion of referring to “the Bradley debacle” as if everyone agrees what that might be, but clearly a lot of dreams will be dashed if the 2022 vote goes elsewhere.

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soccer

Settling all MLS dilemmas in one easy fix (maybe)

Posted on by Beau Dure

The big issues coming out of MLS Cup weekend, among the media and the hard-core supporters (most of whom are “media” in some sense, even if it’s just a prolific Twitter habit) were:

1. This game is ending far too late. Fans are leaving, and no one’s going to make deadline. And maybe they should revisit the whole neutral-site idea, anyway.

2. 10 teams in the playoffs next year? Really?

3. Hmm, the league is considering the formation of a committee that would study the idea of forming a task force to do an in-depth look into asking its competition committee to weigh the prospects of “changing to the international calendar.” (The “international” calendar, of course, means “Western Europe’s calendar.”)

4. Hey, cool, I didn’t know your book was out! Can I get it on Kindle?

Simple issues first: I’m inquiring into issue #4, and the game simply needs to be played earlier. No MLS Cup final should kick off at 8:55 p.m. on a Sunday night. It’s too late. Possibly too cold. The ideal time, particularly if the game is on an NFL Sunday, is probably 6:30 or 7. People can flip over to MLS after the afternoon NFL games, then flip to the Sunday night game when the soccer’s done. Families can attend the game and still have a chance of getting home to get some sleep before work or school the next day.

But should MLS Cup stay in November? Here’s one suggestion surely doomed to fail:

– To meet FIFA’s insistence on playing within the “international calendar,” split the season into a fall Apertura and spring Clausura like so many Latin American leagues. (The wise man they call The Perfesser agrees.) But these won’t quite be your traditional Apertura and Clausura (in part because the calendar and the number of teams simply won’t allow it).

– The Apertura winner earns the right to host MLS Cup the following summer. MLS will still have months to plan a big event with all the attendant conventions (supporters, retailers, sponsors, club execs, etc.), which wouldn’t be possible if the playoffs went to the highest-seeded finalist as determined one week earlier. But the right to host the final will be earned on the field. The host team might even be playing in the game.

– Here’s one trick: To let everyone play a balanced schedule in the Apertura, we have to split the league into two 10-team conferences. The Apertura will be 18 weeks, from early August to late November — typically the best MLS months for attendance. (Yes, TV windows are minimal, but we’ll have to make do with Thursday night games through the Apertura and then stress the Clausura for TV.)

– So how will we know who wins the Apertura and hosts MLS Cup? That will be the first game of the Clausura, which runs 10 weeks from early March to mid-May, and features only interconference games. We’ll start with a bang by pairing the Apertura conference winners to determine the Cup host. The host city still has a couple of months to prepare.

– Records are cumulative. They don’t reset for the Clausura. After 28 games, everyone will have played each team in its conference twice and each team in the other conference once.

– The playoffs will usually run four weeks using the modified Aussie rules system I’ve already put forth. The top four seeds are the Apertura winner, the top team in each conference and the team with the next-best record. Then we have four wild cards.

(Option B has six teams: The Apertura champ and team with top overall record in a four-team modified Aussie rules playoff, with four wild cards playing off to reach that round. Option C: Go straight to four teams.)

Oh, that 10-team playoff format? Forget it. If you’re taking a winter break and summer break, you don’t have time to play all those games.

In fact, in World Cup years, you don’t have time for playoffs at all. Go straight to MLS Cup.

So in simple terms, without all the argumentation: It’s a 28-game season with an 18-game Apertura played all within the conferences. The conference winners face off in the first game of the Clausura for the right to host MLS Cup, and then you have playoffs as described above.

Nothing’s perfect. The Clausura start and Apertura championship game take place during college hoops conference championship week, and it won’t help to move it 1-2 weeks in either direction. CONCACAF Champions League teams play 24 games in the 18 weeks of the Apertura. (The good news: If they get to the knockout rounds, the schedule is a little easier during the skimpier Clausura.)

But this maximizes many things the league would like to accomplish:

  1. Balanced schedule, more or less.
  2. Many teams involved in playoff chase.
  3. Time to plan MLS Cup and attendant conventions.
  4. Incentive to win right to host MLS Cup.
  5. Playoff system that spreads out a lot of home games.
  6. Winter break to avoid freezing.
  7. Ballyhooed “international calendar.”

Have at it.

For further reading: Brian Straus’ group-stage playoff suggestion and Paul Kennedy’s argument in favor of a fall-to-spring season, complete with the suggestion to phase it in during the 2014 World Cup year.

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soccer

Is MLS too physical?

Posted on by Beau Dure

This is a story I worked on through much of the MLS season, but the timing to run it was never quite right. I just updated a couple of figures and posted it here instead.

Early in the MLS season, a couple of league coaches were tired of hearing that their teams were playing a bit rough.

“If you want to avoid contact, I would suggest badminton or curling or chess maybe,” Philadelphia coach Peter Nowak told the Delaware County Daily Times.

“If you want me to bring a lot of ballerinas I will,” then-Toronto coach Preki told TSN.

But players and coaches can’t agree on whether MLS is a “physical” league. One reason for the lack of consensus: They’re not really sure what “physical” means or how “physical” play affects the game.

Continue reading →

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soccer

The big MLS playoff and schedule announcement

Posted on by Beau Dure

As you may have already heard, MLS announced two things Sunday night to coincide with MLS Cup:

1. They’re looking into a change in scheduling to align with the international calendar, which in many parts of the world means an August-May league calendar — with or without a split season, with or without a winter break (well, with — Garber concedes the league won’t be playing in January or most of February). What has actually been decided along these lines: Absolutely nothing. Could be split season, could be Bundesliga-style, could be nothing.

2. They want to go to 11 teams in the playoff. I’m sorry — 10. Thinking ahead to Nigel Tufnel Day (11/11/11). Bracket system to be determined. Brian Straus and I can still hold out hope for our competing playoff proposals (he wants group stage; I want Aussie Rules style).

MLS has often held an informal talk with a mob surrounding the commissioner at halftime. This time, they decided to let us focus on the game, so they told us and held a press conference ahead of the game, with the request that we hold off on reporting it. Sounds reasonable, right? They could’ve just handed us a press release, and we wouldn’t have had a chance to ask questions.

Not that we the media ask the most brilliant questions, and not that Don Garber was really in a position to say anything more than that.

As Charles Boehm said on Twitter (I’ll go back and add links later), aligning with dates for international games would make sense. Playing any farther into the winter is a non-starter.

A Latin American-style split season could be intriguing, and a summer MLS Cup wouldn’t have to worry about NFL and NCAA football taking every available weekend time slot.

The playoff announcement will meet with sure derision from the fans. But good luck changing their minds.

And really, as I said multiple times in my book, MLS can’t please everyone. Not in such a diverse country.

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soccer

A modest MLS playoff proposal

Posted on by Beau Dure

Complaints about the MLS playoff format are as much a part of the American soccer landscape as chants about pies are a part of the English scene. Beneath the hysteria over New York or Salt Lake winning a geographically imprecise conference title, some of the complaints are legit:

– Hosting the second leg of a two-leg series is a middling advantage after a long season.

– Colorado finished seventh in the league and yet will host a conference final.

The league likes to give everyone a home game and put an emphasis on elimination games rather than extended series. Great, but another method works just as well. That method is borrowed from football.

Not that football. The Aussie kind.

Australian Rules Football uses an eight-team version of the Page playoff system that is popular in a few offbeat sports such as softball, curling and yachting.

The principles are these:

– The top four teams must be beaten twice to be eliminated. The bottom four only get one loss.

– The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds are guaranteed two home games. No. 3 through No. 6 get at least one.

So if MLS had put this system in place this year, the schedule would’ve been as follows (home teams listed first):

First round

– No. 1 Los Angeles vs. No. 4 Dallas
– No. 2 Salt Lake vs. No. 3 New York
– No. 5 Columbus vs. No. 8 San Jose (loser out)
– No. 6 Seattle vs. No. 7 Columbus (loser out)

Second round (both losers out)

– LA-Dallas loser vs. Columbus-SJ winner
– RSL-NY loser vs. Seattle-Clb winner

Semifinals (both losers out)

– RSL-NY winner vs. first 2nd round winner
– LA-Dallas winner vs. second 2nd round winner

MLS Cup: Semifinal winners at highest remaining seed

The system is relatively simple, and it rewards regular-season play. The top teams get an advantage without being idle so long that they might get cold. What else could you want?

(MLS fans will surely think of something, of course!)

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soccer

Why the Washington Freedom should not collapse

Posted on by Beau Dure

Forgive me for going personal in this post, but it’s important to trace the history here:

A few times in the five-year gap between the WUSA and WPS, I made the trek out to the Maryland SoccerPlex to see the Washington Freedom, still kicking around and keeping the name and flame alive for women’s soccer in the region. In 2004, they were an exhibition team playing against more structured teams such as the W-League’s New Jersey Wildcats, who featured WUSA stars Kelly Smith and Marinette Pichon. By 2007, they were in the W-League with a strong mix of WUSA vets and younger players who would end up on the roster when WPS finally launched in 2009.

It was an admirable effort to keep things going, and they did more than just gather a group of 18 for a matchday. The Freedom built a legitimate club with a well-established youth program.

So when the news came last night from Jeff Kassouf that the Washington Freedom and FC Gold Pride were folding, it’s safe to say my shock and disbelief spoiled an otherwise entertaining MLS playoff game.

Not that bad news from WPS should be a shock. We’ve seen a couple of teams fold, one in midseason. When The Washington Post‘s Steve Goff made a rare appearance at a Freedom game after a season in which several home games were completely uncovered by the Post staff, someone leaked to him the news that WPS commissioner Tonya Antonucci was being pushed out and the Freedom’s owners — the Hendricks family — were uncertain about their commitment for next season. The interpretation of Antonucci’s exit is debatable, and we still have to wonder who in Washington (well, Montgomery County, Md., to be precise) has an anonymous beef with what’s left of the WPS front office. And we have to wonder if that beef is preventing the Freedom from paying the up-front money into an escrow fund designed to prevent a repeat of the St. Louis situation, in which the Athletica disappeared midseason when funding dried up.

After Kassouf’s post, WPS PR consultant Rob Penner, who was traveling, got on Twitter quickly to say there’s no announcement today and that the league’s board is still working to get everyone on board for next season. Kassouf posted a Twitter update saying the announcement of teams folding may be pushed back from Monday but that Freedom and Gold Pride missed October payments. “Miracles ($) needed,” Kassouf concluded.

That’s a fair conclusion. The Hendricks family had been quietly seeking new investors for a while. No organization ever wants to appear desperate, but that search needs to get a little noisier.

I can’t speak too much to FC Gold Pride’s situation, though I’d think the team could find a middle ground between absorbing the brunt of Marta’s salary and going into extinction. Fake Sigi, in a sound summary of the situation, points out that the team was rather bullish a month ago.

Fake Sigi also notes the similarity between MLS 2001 and WPS 2010, which Dustin Christmann also noted on Twitter in response to a curious Goff Tweet saying WPS was “becoming a cause rather a business.” That statement seems a little more applicable to a club like Barcelona, which tolerates a lot of financial risk and operates under the famous “mas que un club” (more than a club) philosophy. Phil Anschutz being the reclusive man that he is, we’ll never know what sort of faith convinced him to lay down the nine-figure investment he made in MLS. And we don’t know whether the Hendricks family keep the Freedom alive through so many lean years because (A) they believed in women’s soccer in the abstract or (B) they expected to make a fortune down the road. Or some combination of the two.

Gayle Bryan, in another excellent summary of what we know and what we don’t, asks the most pertinent question about the Freedom:

The Hendricks have stuck with the Washington Freedom through the WUSA. They kept the team together when there was no professional league and they’ve made it through the first two seasons of WPS. Why bail now?

Indeed — pulling the plug now would seem to be the equivalent of working through a maze, ruling out several possible paths and then saying, “Nah, let’s quit.” WPS is going all-in on the most slimmed-down business structure imaginable for a national league (and if there are no California teams, it’s more of a regional league, with four teams on the Northeast I-95 corridor along with Chicago and Atlanta). Seems only fair to give that structure one year and see if there’s a Women’s World Cup boost, then re-evaluate.

The future for women’s soccer may indeed be what the Freedom and other top-tier W-League teams did from 2004 to 2008. NCAA regulations are getting looser, so putting college players and national team stars in the same league might be less problematic than it has been. The W-League already pulled that off for years, somehow making it worthwhile for a handful of foreign players and fringe U.S. national teamers to play alongside the NCAA’s best.

If that’s the future, the Freedom would be well-placed to thrive. If WPS survives into 2012, the Freedom surely should be part of it.

Keeping a valuable organization alive is no more of a “cause” than keeping MLS alive in 2001. With their backs against the wall, MLS owners (all three of them, at the time) had to figure out how to make things work. Women’s pro soccer backers are at that point now. They know the WUSA model is too big, at least for now. Some think they can go bigger than the W-League.

If Gold Pride can’t survive to make it another year, that’s regrettable. If the Washington Freedom let a decade of history and youth development go to waste for want of one escrow payment, that’s unfathomable.

This region has plenty of money. Surely someone is willing to risk a relatively small amount of it on something that’s already valuable.

Update: Andy Mead was kind enough to pass along the new USL logos, in which the W-League is branded as “pro-am.”

Clarification: There is, as I suggested on Twitter last night, a difference between the Freedom folding the entire operation and withdrawing from WPS. They could give up on WPS now and revert to the W-League, which I’m sure would be happy to have them. I’m not sure that’s the best course of action — they’d surely have to give up Abby Wambach, for one thing — but it’s certainly better than folding up completely.

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soccer

Colorado 1-0 Columbus: Squander, squander, squander

Posted on by Beau Dure

From the 10th minute to the 75th, the Colorado Rapids dominated the Columbus Crew, racking up double digits in shots. Funny thing, though — they only put a couple of those shots on frame, never seriously testing backup Columbus keeper Andy Gruenebaum aside from the well-taken goal, which left Gruenebaum with no chance.

Random thoughts:

– Crew sub Kevin Burns nearly earned himself quite a bit of play on SportsCenter tomorrow with a looping header from outside the box that clanged off the right post.

– Burns’ shot was one of three great chances for the Crew, all in the second half. Andy Iro pounded a shot off a corner kick right at Matt Pickens, and Guillermo Barros Schelotto put one well over the net.

– Colorado had three forwards on the bench, a testament to their offensive depth, but Mac Kandji was clearly the wrong call. He didn’t have the defensive poise he needed.

– The Crew defense had all sorts of problems. Frankie Hejduk misplayed several balls. Iro struggled with Omar Cummings, who undid the defense with a diagonal run into space where rookie Shaun Francis probably should’ve been.

– Colorado’s dominance came from the midfield, where Mastroeni and Jeff Larentowicz ran over Brian Carroll and a rotation of Eddie Gaven and Emmanuel Ekpo in the center. Carroll committed what you might call a frustration foul, sliding very hard into Cummings.

Second-leg projection: It’s 50-50. After the final 20 minutes, Columbus has the momentum. The game is in Columbus. Colorado counters with a one-goal advantage and the best defense of all — a strong offense.

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soccer

Does the USA need a “No. 10”?

Posted on by Beau Dure

David Hirshey critiques the U.S. MNT with a lament for the bygone days, which never really existed in the USA’s case, of a “No. 10” playmaker directing the team.

From Ives Galarcep, we get a very different reading — the USA fared well in the 4-2-3-1 set-up that seems so common worldwide these days.

The 4-2-3-1 doesn’t rule out a “No. 10” — the midfielder at the center of the “3” line could be that guy. But all three of those midfielders are likely to see a fair amount of the ball, and the best playmaker need not be in the center. Landon Donovan, the MLS assist leader, is listed as a forward on Galaxy previews and is, as Hirshey notes, more commonly found on the flanks.

Bob Bradley was long criticized for playing an “empty bucket” midfield, with two central midfielders who leaned more toward the defensive end. Yet that system simply demanded that everyone share the load. It’s not inherently inferior to a diamond midfield with an attacking No. 10 and a defensive midfielder behind him. Some of the better midfields in MLS — Ronnie Ekelund and Richard Mulrooney spring to mind — were more fluid than the traditional attacking/defending split.

We’d all like to see skillful players, of course, and the buzzword in youth development these days is to encourage players to experiment and play a game more freely than the regimented days of the past. Freddy Adu in particular may have suffered from an insistence that he play more defense than a typical No. 10 or withdrawn forward would play.

But it’s tough to blame senior-level coaches for not having a Messi on hand. Hirshey curiously lumps Bruce Arena in the “hustle first, skill second” mindset of college coaches, even though Arena built fluid teams at Virginia and based D.C. United’s attack on a traditional No. 10 in Marco Etcheverry.

To show off a No. 10 in that mold, you need a player who’s head and shoulders above the rest. (Well, in the literal sense, he’s usually a head shorter — El Pibe excepted, most No. 10s are on the diminutive side.) Then you need to have a team so dominant and confident that someone else can carry the load if the defense focuses too heavily on one predictable mode of attack. Switch Messi to North Korea’s team, and he might not look like the swaggering No. 10 that Hirshey pictures him to be with Barcelona and Argentina.

So to see a true No. 10, the USA would need more than a change of tactics or one excellent player. We’d need to see a Golden Generation come up through the ranks. A No. 10 may be a symptom of a great team, but not the root of one.

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soccer

WPS Best XI and the evolving U.S. women’s national team

Posted on by Beau Dure

As I puzzled over my ballot for the WPS Best XI, announced today, something strange occurred to me. I couldn’t justify putting many U.S. national team veterans on the team.

It’s not that the team is completely foreign — only Marta, Ali Riley (U.S.-born), Kelly Smith and Christine Sinclair hail from other countries. (Side note: Marta is the only player on the Best XI who didn’t play U.S. college soccer.) We’re simply seeing other players emerge.

Here’s a quick comparison:

PLAYER 2008 Olympics 2010 WPS Best XI Current USWNT camp
Abby Wambach, F injured Yes Yes
Cat Whitehill, D injured
Leslie Osborne, M injured got votes
Hope Solo, GK 6 starts injured
Christie Rampone, D 6 starts (capt) Yes
Heather Mitts, D 6 starts Yes
Shannon Boxx, M 6 starts my ballot Yes
Carli Lloyd, M 6 starts (2 GWG) Yes
Lindsay Tarpley, M 6 starts Yes
Heather O’Reilly, M 6 starts got votes Yes
Angela Hucles, F/M 6 starts (4 G) retired retired
Amy Rodriguez, F 5 starts/1 sub Yes Yes
Kate Markgraf, D 5 starts
Lori Chalupny, M 5 starts injured?
Natasha Kai, F 1 start/5 subs
Stephanie Cox, D 1 start/4 sub Yes
Rachel Buehler, D 1 start/1 sub Yes Yes
Tobin Heath, F/M 3 sub injured Yes
Lauren Cheney, F 2 sub Yes
Aly Wagner, M 1 sub retired retired
Nicole Barnhart, GK Reserve Yes Yes
Amy LePeilbet, D Yes Yes
Whitney Engen, D my ballot Yes
Kristine Lilly, M pregnant got votes Yes
Jill Loyden, GK Yes
Alyssa Naeher, GK Yes
Ali Krieger, D not in WPS Yes
Meghan Schnur, D Yes
Brittany Taylor, D Yes
Yael Averbuch, M Yes
Sarah Huffman, M Yes
Lori Lindsey, M Yes Yes
Joanna Lohman, M Yes
Kelley O’Hara, M Yes
Megan Rapinoe, M Yes
Sydney Leroux, F college Yes
Alex Morgan, F college Yes
Jordan Angeli, M Yes

The only differences between my ballot and the Best XI: I had Boxx and Engen instead of Angeli and Buehler. Close calls in both cases.

We see some natural evolution here, with young players replacing retirees such as Hucles and Wagner. LePeilbet (28 years old) had a long road back from knee injuries. Lindsey (30) had played only 28 minutes for the national team — five years ago — before 2010. But it’s still a surprise to look back at the Olympic team from two years ago — gold medalists — and see only two players on the WPS Best XI.

Some of the movement is easily explained. Wambach would have been a third Olympian on the WPS Best XI if not for the horrific broken leg she suffered before Beijing. O’Reilly and Rampone are still perfectly good players who got mired on a dysfunctional Sky Blue team this season.

Chalupny’s injury situation — cleared to play in WPS but not for the national team — is still puzzling. Kai is always a bit of an enigma, and she has had a few injury problems along the way.

Where we might see the biggest change is at the back. Whitehill and Markgraf aren’t in camp. Mitts made it to camp despite serving as a substitute at the end of Philadelphia’s season.

And the current camp roster may not be the final word on the changes between now and the 2011 World Cup. Angeli, a second-round draft pick who can play almost any position on the field, made the Best XI roster but wasn’t called to camp.

So the good news for the U.S. team is that WPS is accelerating competition for places. That competition might give U.S. coach Pia Sundhage a headache through World Cup qualifying this fall and a World Cup year in 2011, but she surely doesn’t mind.

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mind games, mma, soccer

Are sports monopolies necessary?

Posted on by Beau Dure

The news that a district court judge has allowed a lawsuit to proceed against MLS and U.S. Soccer is worrisome for the league and federation. The details of the ruling (see the PDF) are downright disturbing.

At issue: Is U.S. Soccer a legitimate overseer of professional soccer in the USA? Beyond that: Can any organizing body claim dominion over a sport?

In the legal world, monopoly power is a serious problem. In the sports world, we take it for granted. Men’s tennis = ATP. Women’s tennis = WTA. U.S. college sports = NCAA (NAIA exists but is far smaller). Baseball = antitrust-exempted Major League Baseball.

Sports that don’t have a monopoly in place, such as indoor soccer, are usually seen as weakened. Everyone thinks he has a better business plan than the other guy, and the result is often a mish-mash of leagues that test fans’ patience.

Monopolies and near-monopolies may limit competition on the business front. But on the competitive front, they establish objective criteria for determining who’s the best.

Think of boxing, with its alphabet soup of “world champions.” The world chess championship hasn’t really recovered from a split in the mid-90s in which Garry Kasparov walked away from governing body FIDE, though FIDE has its own issues that linger to this day. (Literally — this week, Anatoly Karpov’s bid for FIDE presidency has been squashed by incumbent Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who seems more inclined to speak with aliens than listen to Karpov’s supporters.)

In mixed martial arts, fans endlessly debate whether to accept the UFC’s argument that it’s the “major league,” and everyone else is minor league. The UFC is getting closer — with Fedor Emelianenko’s loss in June, the UFC and lighter-weight affiliate WEC claimed the top spot in every weight class of the USA TODAY/SB Nation consensus rankings.

The court ruling — which, to be clear, is hardly the final word on the matter — would open the door for competition unless Congress has explicitly said otherwise. The judge rejected U.S. Soccer’s argument that the Ted Stevens Act, which establishes governing bodies for amateur and Olympic-preparatory sports, gives it dominion over the professional game as well. And in other sports, that’s true — USA Basketball and USA Hockey deal with national teams, not the NBA and NHL.

But the fearful question soccer fans must ask is this: Has the court limited U.S. Soccer’s ability to act for the greater good of the game? Specifically, can it protect the interests of a professional league (MLS) trying to take root where no other league has before?

If you remember ChampionsWorld, you may remember it as anything but benign as far as MLS was concerned. The message was driven home on the broadcasts by VP Giorgio Chinaglia, described by Grant Wahl as “the insufferable former New York Cosmos great” with a revisionist mindset toward NASL history and outright malice toward MLS.

Of course, the league survived, and ChampionsWorld didn’t. U.S. cities have shown they’ll support a few preseason exhibition tours by traveling Euro teams, but everyone has a limit.

From a practical point of view, the ruling might not open a can of worms but may merely provide the can opener. Just as other governing bodies provide the pathway to the Olympics, the pinnacle in most of those sports, U.S. Soccer provides the pathway to the World Cup. In the only part of the ruling that is clearly unsound, the judge seriously underestimates FIFA’s interest in meddling and its power to do so.

The ruling could pose a competitive challenge for SUM, the marketing affiliate for MLS that has figured out how to make money off promoting outsiders’ games in the USA. But some games already are outside SUM’s domain. The promoters in these cases are paying sanctioning fees to U.S. Soccer but not to SUM.

And so the optimists’ view of this case would be this: The suit is simply a deterrent to keep U.S. Soccer from setting its sanctioning fee too high. (And also repaying a few ChampionsWorld creditors.)

If MLS and U.S. Soccer were to lose this case, they might take heart from some U.S. precedent. The NFL once lost an antitrust suit. Even though the NFL paid a few million to the USFL in legal fees in addition to the famous $3 cash award, the NFL seems to have survived.

The NFL also has maintained its dominance as other upstart leagues have arisen. The XFL promised something different, and it turned out to be a little too different. The UFL, still in existence, is operating on a smaller scale.

MLS is already in a competitive environment. Fans can sit at home and watch games from around the world in HD (though it still doesn’t compare to the atmosphere of a good live game). Winning this case won’t make it go away. Losing won’t make it that much worse.

U.S. Soccer, like the UFC, has its critics who say it’s too arrogant in defending its share of the market. Ultimately, the threat of competition could keep it honest.

Congress isn’t going to hand U.S. Soccer, the UFC, the NFL or anyone else (other than baseball, which is another rant) carte blanche to do what it wants. It’s up to the managers and promoters to make sure competition on the business front doesn’t devolve into chaos on the competitive front, no matter what happens in court.

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