The US Soccer president’s abrupt resignation could represent an opportunity for true reform and a shift in culture at the federation. After all, it’s hard to imagine it can get any worse

How is US Soccer going to get itself out of this mess?

While the new coronavirus is upending much of the sports world, US Soccer has been unraveled by its own sexism and arrogance, culminating Thursday in the sudden resignation of the federation’s president, Carlos Cordeiro.

Carlos Cordeiro quits US Soccer Federation after row over female players Read more

US Soccer’s latest misstep? An appalling admission in legal filings that the federation views its female athletes as inherently inferior to their male counterparts.

In response to the wage discrimination lawsuit filed by the US women’s national team, the federation argued Monday that women have less “ability” than men because ability is based on “the level of certain physical attributes, such as speed and strength”. The federation’s male attorney went on to write that playing for the men’s team “requires a higher level of skill” and it wasn’t “a sexist stereotype” but “indisputable science”.

In other words, US Soccer tried to justify paying women less based on the same misogyny spewed by Twitter trolls to demean female athletes every day. Of all the ways US Soccer could’ve defended itself, it chose to say the women don’t deserve equal pay because they aren’t equal.

The criticism was swift. First it was former players, such as Heather O’Reilly, who wrote that “to read that US Soccer thinks this of the USWNT and female athletes in general is disgusting and disturbing to me”. Then came the sponsors, with Coca-Cola, Visa, Deloitte and Budweiser calling it “unacceptable” and “offensive”. The players on the USWNT engaged in a silent protest before a game Wednesday night.

There’s never a good time to weaponize misogyny and demean women everywhere, but the timing perfectly illustrated the way US Soccer has historically wanted to have it both ways, patting itself on the back for its support of women while quietly applying double standards in other ways. The sexist legal filing came amid the SheBelieves Cup and the SheBelieves Summit, the federation’s attempt to promote female empowerment.

That’s why Cordeiro’s resignation, as necessary as it may have been, does little to fix anything.

US Soccer’s unconscionable legal strategy was not Cordeiro’s doing, and it wasn’t something that emerged for the first time this week. It was a strategy presumably executed at the direction of several high-ranking officials at US Soccer. Megan Rapinoe said the team long felt an “undercurrent” of disrespect from their boss but the legal filing just proved it.

Federation lawyers last year grilled Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan in depositions about whether they could beat boys at soccer. At one point, an attorney asked: “Do you think you could be competitive against the senior men’s national team?” to which Lloyd replied: “Shall we fight it out to see who wins and then we get paid more?”

Other employees and board members who remain at US Soccer knew exactly the federation’s legal counsel was doing and apparently thought it was a fine strategy. The months-long process of building a legal defense doesn’t occur in a vacuum.

To be clear, US Soccer does support its women’s team better than perhaps any other federation in the world does. In some ways, the USWNT’s continued success is a product of that support and investment.

But the federation’s attitude that the women ought to be thankful for whatever they get is nothing new – that’s what the federation said back in the 1990s, when the women were paid $10 per day and had to work side jobs to support their love of their sport.

US Soccer is an organization that is, in some ways, entrenched in what it was when the USWNT first started in 1985 and the players wore hand-me-down men’s jerseys. It’s grown massively over the years into an entity that employs hundreds of full-time and part-time staff and will spend around $143m this year on operations. But that growth has just been added onto what US Soccer always been and how it’s always done things, with its most influential figures also some of its longest-tenured.

There was hope that with Cordeiro at the helm that could start to change. In the past year, longtime CEO Dan Flynn stepped down, followed by string-puller CMO Jay Berhalter. Kate Markgraf, who hadn’t been afraid to criticize the federation in the past, was hired as the GM for women’s programming.

But since Cordeiro took over in 2018 from former president Sunil Gulati, who didn’t run for re-election after the US men failed to qualify for the World Cup, reforms have been slow and tepid. Cordeiro, as well-intentioned as he may have been, appeared too eager to defer to the expertise of the people around him – many of the same people who had been at the federation far too long and were resistant to change.

The federation has made efforts to boost morale at US Soccer House, but the mess of the past week surely tanked it again. After all, every woman there must have heard what US Soccer thinks of them – and what kind of man wants to work at an organization labeled as sexist?

Now, the VP candidate that sources say Cordeiro favored, Cindy Parlow Cone, has abruptly been thrown into the president role. Parlow Cone, a former USWNT midfielder, spoke out publicly against US Soccer’s sexist legal strategy hours before Cordeiro resigned, calling it “troubling”. Now, she’ll be at the helm until February 2021, when someone else can be elected to take over Cordeiro’s term, and she’ll serve as US Soccer’s first female president.

There’s not a question of Parlow Cone’s capabilities but of how much she’ll embrace the job at a time when the federation lacks direction and leadership. The presidential position is unpaid but heavily involved – another sign that US Soccer has failed to evolve past its quaint beginnings – and the volunteer VP role she signed up for was very much part-time.

What US Soccer needs is a much larger overhaul. Heather O’Reilly, who was on the Athlete Council that voted for Cordeiro, said US Soccer should go through “a lengthy process of reorganization”. She’s right, but the federation has resisted it for this long – why should anything change now?

Maybe, just maybe, the situation is dire enough that now is the time for true reform and a shift in culture. After all, it’s hard to imagine it can get any worse.