Sharing three things to which any serious candidate for American soccer’s highest office must commit if soccer is to matter at all in the decade to come, and beyond.

by Mel Brennan

(1) Sport in general – and soccer in particular – will only be what we make it; we can only make of it what we can see. Thus, we can afford no soccer mythology, only organizational transparency. The next U.S. Soccer President must be a servant-leader in forging change in this area.

The godfather of sport sociology, Jay Coakley of the University of Colorado, submits that three things make up what he calls the Great Sport Myth (GSM):

The pervasive and nearly unshakable belief in the inherent purity and goodness of sport; That the purity and goodness of sport is transmitted to those who participate in or consume it; That sport inevitably leads to individual and community development.

In the decade and a half since my thirty months with CONCACAF and FIFA, I have worked with investigative journalists, media outlets soccer fans and soccer critics to disabuse everyday people of the idea that soccer, on its own, generates good, pure outcomes.

Soccer is run by human beings. By men, particularly. And their effort to date must be found wanting.

The levels of corruption I and others revealed were unparalleled in the history of international sport governance; the Salt Lake scandals of the International Olympic Committee were small change compared to the deep, historic and abiding dishonesty, bribery, crimes, exploitation, extortion, fraud, graft, nonfeasance, malfeasance, nepotism, crookedness, demoralization, misrepresentation, payoffs, payola, racketeering, shadiness, and Manichean venality of soccer’s leadership since at least 1970.

These truths, combined with the pervasiveness of the GSM, allowed decades of damage to the world’s most prolific sport, all under the guise of something good and pure. The GSM stood in-between our natural proclivity towards curious inquiry, stood in the way of us looking at – and demanding we can look at – the day-to-day operations of something that claims to represent us. We abandoned transparency to myth.

Never again. And “never again” must mean that we look critically at what we mean, want and expect when we say “U.S. Soccer,” and “U.S. soccer,” because they are, in fact, at least two different things. And the next President must be able to tell that difference.

(2) Sport in general – and soccer in particular – must be developed with two pillars in mind; one is what Coakley has called “power and performance sport,” the other “pleasure and participation sport.” Both have infinite value, but only the latter will apply to most participants most of the time. The next U.S. Soccer President must be an expert-seeker in forging change in this area.

Three years ago, when I wrote “A Better FIFA” on these pages, I shared an image I’ll share again here:

As you can read, these two pillars describe entirely different ways of engaging the sport of soccer. Only one, the pleasure and participation framework, ensures a lifetime of enjoyment with the sport. But it cannot allow us to test ourselves and our limits the way the narrow time we have in our lives with power and performance soccer can. One platform can be a form of “pressure cooker” out of which skills can be forged, interdependent units can thrive and glorious victories achieved. The other sees us as engaged with soccer at 70 years of age as we were at age 7. Both are required in the American soccer experience for it to be future-proofed against the hoary vagaries and narrowing of intent that outside forces place upon sport in America (and thorughout the world). The U.S. can lead here, delivering a future form of the sport that sets the standard for others to follow – our favorite thing to do – but it needs the right leader, one who can see this future, now.

Both frameworks on sport’s possibility must be fully embraced at the beginning for U.S. Soccer to have a foundation from which to proceed. Combine that with the best of what’s known by scientists on child development and sport – such as the work found here – and both pillars get transformed in terms of the lived experiences of youth 0-5, 6-8, 9-12 and 13-17. Expertise on child development is severly lacking in the coaching regimes found in and among youth soccer communities today. It’s the why behind why, for example, kids the ages of 4-5 run aroud playing “beehive soccer,” to the chagrin of coaches, parents and others who expect more without knowing the science, and changing both their expectations and the games they place in front of kids accordingly.

(3) Forms of soccer in the United States must be made permanently and robustly accessible to the most vulnerable and marginalized populations of the nation, particularly keeping track of the access of poor and working class communities of color. The next U.S. Soccer President must be a civil rights speaker in forging change in this area.

There are, in 2017, about 75 million children in the United States, broken down relatively evenly at about 25 million kids across three major child development “gateways” in terms of age (not the only way to measure development, or even the best way, but I digress). As the National Center for Children in Poverty reveals:

…Children under 18 years represent 23 percent of the [U.S.] population, but they comprise 32 percent of all people in poverty. Many more children live in families with incomes just above the poverty threshold. Among all children, 44 percent live in low-income families and approximately one in every five (21 percent) live in poor families. Being a child in a low-income or poor family does not happen by chance. Parental education and employment, race/ethnicity, and other factors are associated with children’s experience of economic insecurity…

How can sport insert itself into this damning dynamic?

The better candidate for U.S. Soccer President would respond “How can it not?”

The health and well-being benefits of soccer in particular are well documented. Connecting vulnerable communities – and, most notably, the children of those communities – with a form of recreation, movement, ethical sampling and social connection like soccer transforms lives.

That’s the work soccer can do in the U.S.; that must be the Worthy Work of U.S. Soccer.

So…a servant-leader, an expert-seeker and a civil rights speaker…that’s a meaningful remit.

Does your favorite candidate have a clear and measurable platform to get us there?

Or are we stuck in the old mythology of sport, unable to see clearly to the next milestone ahead?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.