President Sunil Gulati not the right person to fix the problems he helped create.
The president of US Soccer doesn’t think now is the right time to discuss whether he’s the best person to lead the federation.
So when is? Four years from now, when the U. S. men are straggling through another World Cup qualifying campaign? Two or three years from now, after the U. S. women make another early exit from a major tournament?
How about after the Americans have burned through two more coaches in less than a year, neither able to produce anything more than mediocre results? Or maybe after a development pipeline that ensures millions of kids are locked out of the game squanders another generation of talent?
Catastrophic as the U. S. men’s failure to qualify for next summer’s World Cup was, it came after a series of warning signs that federation officials ignored. Two missed Olympics and two wins in three World Cups for the men, the earliest exit at a major tournament for the women.
There are systemic and entrenched problems at US Soccer, and fixing them – really fixing them – is going to require a complete overhaul of both mindset and methods.
Which will never happen as long as Sunil Gulati sticks around as US Soccer’s president.
Gulati bears even more responsibility for this week’s debacle than Bruce Arena, who announced Friday morning that he was resigning after the U. S. men failed for the first time in 28 years to make the World Cup.
It is Gulati who hired Jurgen Klinsmann, gave him a contract extension before the 2014 World Cup and then waited too long to fire him. It is Gulati who failed to implement a cohesive development program for the national teams. It is Gulati who failed to dismantle the pay-to-play system that cultivates kids with the most financial resources rather than the most talent.
So it is Gulati who needs to go. Yet he said Friday he won’t resign, and he wouldn’t rule out running for a last four-year term as president next year.
“Because of everything – where the sport is now and the role I played in it and the role I think I can play going forward. Plus the (2026) World Cup bid,” Gulati said when asked why he wasn’t resigning.
I don’t doubt that Gulati has the best interests of US Soccer at heart. But he’s not the right person to fix the problems he helped create.
US Soccer needs to do a thorough examination, from kids first learning how to play to the senior national teams – men and women – to the federation’s administrative structure. It needs to examine how coaches are being trained and players are being developed. It needs to consider whether the technical director should – or shouldn’t – also be the national team coach.
It needs to look at the role of president, and whether it being a “volunteer” position precludes the people who would be best for the job. It needs to examine its relationships with Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League and the other professional leagues to ensure they’re mutually beneficial.
It needs to look at the NCAA structure and the impact it has on young male players. It needs to study the players who went to Europe or Mexico and see why some had success and others failed.
All of this needs to be done with a fresh and unbiased eye, and Gulati doesn’t have that.
He’s been president of US Soccer since the spring of 2006, when the Americans were still basking in the glow of the men’s quarterfinal run four years earlier. America had turned a corner as a soccer nation with its success in 2002, and it was only a matter of time before the U. S. men became World Cup contenders.
Or so the thinking went.
Sure, soccer is more popular than ever and US Soccer’s finances are robust. (One could argue that’s as much a credit to the ever-shrinking world and expanding cable packages as it is Gulati.) But 15 years after that transformative World Cup campaign, a country of 323 million, where a good percentage of boys play soccer for at least part of their childhood, still lags behind the Icelands and Panamas of the world and isn’t even in the same conversation with the Germanys and Argentinas.
Christian Pulisic is a once-in-a-generation talent, just as Landon Donovan was. But where are the other players like him? Where are the heirs apparent to Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley and Tim Howard, for that matter? And why is finding a top-notch left back only slightly easier than finding a unicorn?
This is a pivotal moment for American soccer, and the decisions made in the coming months will set the course for the next decade and beyond. That requires people thinking outside the box and people who aren’t bound by the past.
Arena recognized that. Now it’s time Gulati does, too.
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Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour .
