Ridgewood man has big ideas to change the course of American soccer

Michael Winograd believes he has what it takes to fix U.S. Soccer.

The 47-year-old corporate attorney from Ridgewood is running for the presidency of the United States Soccer Federation, the governing body that controls all forms of the sport in the country. On Feb. 10, he'll find out if being the "outsider" in this year's contested election serves as an advantage.

Winograd is going up against some of the most familiar names in soccer, including former national team standouts Hope Solo and Eric Wynalda. He is also competing against U.S. soccer insiders, like the vice president of USSF. But Winograd is no stranger to the beautiful game.

"I grew up like many of the folks in soccer: Soccer was my life. I played it every single day. Every birthday present, I think, had something to do with soccer," he said. "I was fortunate enough to have traveled abroad to play it in tournaments in my youth, and played in college and continued playing professionally and coaching collegiately and being involved with my kids."

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He grew up playing the sport on Long Island. He later played in college, professionally and also has extensive experience as a coach. Winograd enrolled in law school after a devastating knee injury, but not before helping launch a soccer franchise on Staten Island and dipping his toes in team management.

Today, Winograd is an attorney with Ropes & Gray in Manhattan. He lives with his wife, Siobhan, and children, Liam and Chloe, in Ridgewood, where he is a member of the Ridgewood Soccer Association’s board and the village’s Parks and Recreation Committee. His full bio can be found online.

“I look at the sport I love, and I think it’s at a crossroads," said Winograd. "I’m worried that parts of it are lagging and a little bit broken. I want to contribute and make it better."

American soccer is at perhaps its lowest ebb, and many blame the federation. Critics say youth development has lagged, and the world-beating women's national team has alleged gender discrimination multiple times, most notably over wage disparities. What proved to be the tipping point was the men's failure to qualify for this year’s World Cup, after a shocking loss to Trinidad & Tobago.

And tensions continue to mount as the Feb. 10 election approaches. On Tuesday, Solo filed a formal complaint against USSF, alleging the organization has for too long made Major League Soccer a priority, at the expense of youth programs, the women’s game and the country’s place in global competition.

Sunil Gulati, who chose not seek reelection, has been at the helm of the 105-year-old organization for the past 12 years. In three elections, he ran unopposed. This year, eight candidates are on the presidential ballot, including Winograd, Solo and Wynalda. The rest are: former men's national team player Paul Caligiuri, Soccer United Marketing president Kathy Carter, USSF Vice President Carlos Cordeiro, Boston-based attorney Steve Gans, and former MLS player and TV analyst Kyle Martino.

If elected, Winograd says, he will step away from his career to take on the four-year unpaid role. But why does he think he has what it takes to run U.S. soccer? The Record and NorthJersey.com caught up with Winograd to find out.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. An audio version is found below.

What motivated you to put your hat in the ring?

This started years ago when I was coaching my kids. U.S. Soccer at the youth level is sort of this conglomerate of competing and overlapping businesses. I looked at that and said, "There’s got to be a better way for the kids."

With the U.S. national team, ultimately, I just never understood who is making decisions and how decisions were being made. So, by the time the Trinidad & Tobago game came, it was evident that we needed change. That game really opened the door to competing for the presidency. I looked around at the candidate field, and there are folks in here with some strengths, but I just don’t think any of them have the broad package in every respect you need for this job at the very high level.

What are some of those characteristics or skills?

There are really three areas. The first is independence. I have no hidden agendas. I have no sponsors. I have no special ties to any of the constituents. I have one interest, and that’s putting the interests of U.S. Soccer first.

Second area is soccer. I played professionally. I coached collegiately. I managed professionally. I did all that at the youth level, as well. So, I understand the game very well. I understand it from all perspectives.

The third is the business side. It’s easy to say we want change. It’s easy to say we’re going to form a committee. It’s easy to say we’re going to get people to the table, and actually negotiate a solution and come up with a better structure for youth soccer.

I’ve actually been doing that for 17 years at the highest levels. I represented the biggest companies in the world: Microsoft, Bank of America, Samsung, FedEx Supply. I’ve been in boardrooms with CEOs where I’ve had to articulate persuasively in real time why one path forward is better than the alternatives. That’s a skill. It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s something that this job will absolutely need.

In stories about your candidacy, the angle often is, "Who’s Michael Winograd?" What has it been like competing against the likes of Hope Solo, one of the most well-known names in soccer?

I liked being looked at as an outsider, because I am. I’m not beholden to any of these people. I don’t have special ties. I’ve met with all the key constituents, and have great relationships with them. I think I’ve earned respect. But I like being the outsider, because I think that’s what it’s going to take.

As far as name recognition, it’s not a popular election. It’s not like a presidential election, where the whole public gets to vote. The voters here are sophisticated, and they’re smart. I think they’re going to say: Who will be best for U.S. Soccer? Who is going to be in a position not just to talk about change, but who do we think really means it and who can deliver it? Who can execute and actually do this job?

What are the first things you would do if elected?

No. 1 is governance: making sure that the critical decisions are made through an inclusive, merit-based and transparent process. One of the first things I will do is make sure that all critical decisions — whether about national team managers, national team games, youth policies, technical developments, whatever it is — critical decisions are going to involve people who are affected by those decisions. No one person can possibly have the knowledge of all these people that have been doing this with their boots on the ground for 10, 20, 30 years.

No. 2: There will be equality in women’s soccer. I am stunned that it is 2018 and this is even an issue. The fact that there is not absolute equality is mind-blowing to me. I want to be clear about this. The men don’t have to play on substandard fields; the women will not, either. If the men are flying first class, the women will be flying first class. Whatever the men’s per diems are, women will get the same per diems. Whatever technology is being used in training camps, whatever the men have access to, the women will have access to. There will be complete equality.

With respect to pay, if the men and women decide that they want the same pay structure, they will have the absolute dollar-for-dollar equality. If the women or men decide they want a different pay structure, that’s fine. But we will work it out so there is absolute equivalence in terms of pay.

The third thing I’m going to focus on is reducing the cost barriers with both the pay-to-play model, which is the astronomical price that it costs right now to play as a young soccer player, and coaching education. If your son or daughter is playing competitive soccer as a youth, you’re probably spending $10,000 a year on soccer. That is insane. We need to reduce those costs and make it more accessible to kids. At the same time, we need to reduce the cost of coaching, because the key to player development is getting kids in front of good coaches at an early age. If you have a woman who graduates college and played Division I college soccer, but you’re going to tell her that, as a recent college grad, she needs to spend $1,500 on a coaching course, plus travel and stay at a hotel? It’s ridiculous. We’re going to reduce those costs.

Listen to the full interview here. The story continues below.

Winograd has a few ideas to reduce costs to make soccer more accessible for players and coaches.

I’ve talked about five ways of doing it. U.S. Soccer has a surplus of $150 million. We can dip into that. No. 2: We need to make sure we’re maximizing grants. There are lots of public grants available, and we need to make sure we’re not leaving money on the table. We need to invest in finding a team [at U.S. Soccer] to make sure we’re not leaving money on the table.

No. 3: The U.S. Soccer Foundation has done a fabulous job of raising money and getting into inner cities, urban areas, under-represented communities and building fields. They’ve done it not just through raising money from private companies, but they’ve now done it by accessing municipal funds that are earmarked for infrastructure.

Lastly, solidarity payments. Solidarity payments are a chance for a club to say, "OK, we developed Clint Dempsey and now he’s signing a big contract. That professional club should pay us a sum percentage." That does two things. Obviously, if you’ve developed a Clint Dempsey, you’re going to get some windfall payment. What solidarity payments also do is they incentivize upfront investments at these clubs.

He also has a vision for developing state soccer centers across the U.S.

Let’s talk a minute about those one-percenters — those kids who are competing to go professionally or to get on the national team. We are going to set up state soccer centers. Each state is going to have them — more in larger states, like associations. The soccer centers are going to house a full-time state soccer director, and he or she is going to be paid well. We want to make it a viable alternative to people who love soccer and are saying, "I have the opportunity to go coach Division I or coach in MLS, but this is a viable alternative."

What that director will be responsible for is recruiting and training the elite players in a clearly defined path to the national team. One of the things we need [in U.S. Soccer] is clearly defined paths, clearly defined structures. They’re not clearly defined now. We need the consumer to understand what product is for what — if your son or daughter is potentially good enough for the national team, here is the clearly defined path for it.

We’re going to have those state soccer centers set up, and directors to handle them.

Especially in New Jersey, we’re a diverse population. You have kids who are raised by Italian or German parents, so they may want to compete overseas. For example, the first name that comes to mind is Giuseppe Rossi. He played in Clifton. He played on the Mustangs. Instead of playing for the U.S. Men’s National Team, he opted to play for the Italian National Team. What’s your solution for something like that, to incentivize players to stay in American soccer?

The first thing you need to do is fix U.S. Soccer at the youth levels. That goes to making sure that there are clearly defined paths, that it’s less expensive, that we’re all rowing in the same direction. Make it more inviting for good players to stay here. Begin to set up a model that’s clearly defined, efficient and effective so players like that, the [Christian] Pulisics of the world, are saying, ‘I don’t have to go to Germany, because what we’re setting up here is just as good."

No. 2. You need to continue to work with MLS and other pro leagues to get them to the level of the elite leagues in the world. If you can do that, you’re creating more of an incentive to play here. If we continue to build our youth programs and make them more attractive, more efficient, more effective, it will incentivize people to stay. If we can continue to help MLS grow — and it’s grown in leaps and bounds — if it continues in that trajectory, hopefully we’ll be in a position to say: "By the way, stay. Play in MLS, because Germany’s got nothing on us, England’s got nothing on us, Spain’s got nothing on us."

That may seem far out in the distance right now. I don’t know that it is. This country has the human resources and economic resources to make this happen. If you look at where U.S. Soccer has come on the business side and the marketing side over the last 20 or so years, it’s night and day to the game that I grew up in. The soccer has lagged. We haven’t developed as much as we should in the youth development and the skill level, but we’re going to. And when we do, we’re not far from being one of those preeminent leagues in the world.

This position is unpaid. What’s your take on that? And will you still work as an attorney?

I will not take a dime as president of U.S. Soccer. But I will absolutely encourage a change to the bylaws to make this a paid position. As long as I’m president, those changes will not affect me, but it needs to change for the next president.

This job has evolved to president of a $150 million organization, in a country where soccer has prominence in the world. We need to make sure that we are attracting the absolute top — the crème de la crème. We need general managers of professional sports teams. We need CEOs of major corporations. We need high-level attorneys, like myself, working in the corporate world. We need more of them to be in a position to say, "I will step away from my job to take this job." But it’s really hard to do that when you are not offering a salary.

Fortunately, I’ve done very well. My wife has done very well. We’re in a position where I can do this. Others are not, unfortunately, and we need to change that.

A lot of people have asked you about the Women’s National team – about equality, turf issues, etc. But, the Men’s team didn’t make the World Cup, and one can argue that may be why there are so many people running for president now. What went wrong for the men?

I’ll take a step back and say the youth development issue is for men and women. The men didn’t make the World Cup. They also didn’t make the last two Olympics. The women have not qualified for the Olympics as well recently. So we need to make sure not only that the men catch up, but that the women remain the preeminent team in the world.

When you ask about the Men’s National Team. I look at it in two ways. There is the underlying issue that has been percolating for a long time, which is player development. We need to improve player development to get better players. We've got some outstanding players [on the national team] who’ve fought tooth and nail for the American Spirit — but we need to make sure we’re bringing a larger pool of players, reducing cost barriers to get into all the underrepresented communities, and recruiting objectively and broadly across all leagues in U.S. Soccer.

At the acute level, we need to make sure that decisions are being made properly. Again, I can’t tell you why Jürgen Klinsmann was hired. I don’t know what went into signing a new contract for him. I don’t know what went into releasing Bob Bradley after he had done quite well. I don’t know what went into releasing Bruce Arena. I don’t know how those decisions were made. I look at some of those decisions in terms of coaching. I look at the decisions as to where to play home games. I just don’t know the process. I think we need a better process. I think we need to make sure that more experts are involved in those kinds of decisions, and really implement a thoughtful, deliberate inclusive process to make those kinds of decisions.

What’s your take on the uniqueness of the United States in that we do have collegiate soccer and we do have the collegiate level of play that other countries don’t have? Whether that’s an advantage or a disadvantage?

It can be an advantage. It’s not right now. I want to work with the colleges. One of the things that the NCAA is exploring, and I know college coaches are pushing for, is changing the college schedule to make it so it no longer is this condensed two-month schedule, which is just not conducive to soccer, and stretching it out over the course of the year and having a fall and spring season. I think that would be fabulous. You wouldn’t have games being played every two, three days with players getting injured and it becoming a war of attrition, over: How can I keep my players healthy to have a shot at winning? You’ll be able to play soccer. You’re losing ground when you go into the college game right now. I think the schedule would do a lot to change that.

Extending the schedule will be tremendous, because you enable coaches to really coach over the long term and to develop players in a great environment with great facilities. I’ll put some of our Division I and Division II and even Division III facilities up against the best training facilities of any pro team in the world. You take a look at what Stanford has, I’ll throw that up against Manchester United any day of the week. By the way, if you go to Stanford, you’re not only having lunch with fellow soccer players. You’re going to be having lunch with an Olympic gold medal swimmer, an Olympic gymnast, and a volleyball athlete. I mean [our college system] is a spectacular opportunity that other countries don’t have; we just need to make sure that the soccer component of the college is conducive to developing players at a higher rate.