Who killed the American Open Pyramid?

With the explosion of the Open Pyramid movement in the United States over the last few years more and more people have started digging in to the history of the formation of the current structure of the USSF's pyramid. Recently some wonderful documents have started to surface including this gem from a USSF white paper...

According to a 1989 white paper by U.S. Soccer that was revealed today by Daniel Bonaire on Twitter from documents gleaned from veteran soccer journos, the federation was working on a three-tier structure in the United States, in an open system with the opportunity for any club in the United States to participate. The plan was supported in 1988 by U.S. Soccer, according to the New York Times, under the presidency of Werner Fricker, who was head of the U.S. Soccer Federation until 1990. A faction of US Soccer membership wasn't happy with the idea, however, and took steps to get Fricker ousted from U.S. Soccer and replaced.

That group would go on to create Major League Soccer.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE


Read the entire USSF white paper after the jump...

US Soccer ... Who are you? Still asking the same questions since 2010...

A reader sent us a GREAT read from 2010 asking some of the same questions we are still asking today.. plus it gave out several tidbits of information I did not know about like this one.

When Gulati was first brought on as president, the size of the Board of Directors was curiously slimmed down in order to “more closely represent its three councils- Professional, Youth, Adult- and other constituencies."  Perhaps this was done in order to consolidate the sovereignty of board members and Gulati.  With this theory in mind, it is not hard to understand why Gulati was unanimously re-elected as the President of US Soccer in February of 2010, despite any advanced heads up by US Soccer or the media.   The Hegemony preserves itself.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE



Why has this USSF veil of secrecy still not been broken after all of these years?

Do you want to wait "generations" for world class US soccer?

If you would like to see world class soccer happen in the US top domestic league within your lifetime according to MLS commish Don Garber today ... you're just outta luck.

"Our vision goal is to be one of the top leagues in the world but it will be generations before we are literally playing at the level of the Premier League or the Bundesliga, but that is OK" 

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

Just let that sink in for a minute...





MLS is just fine with not providing US soccer fans with a product on the level of the EPL or Bundesliga for GENERATIONS. 40-50-60 years going forward we can not expect to see top quality soccer from the MLS if they have their way.

How depressing of a thought it that as a fan of US soccer?

Please join in our the discussion of opening the US soccer pyramid on social media using the #ProRelForUSA hashtag!

One Sport One Company

When you are reading the multitude of great articles coming out about the USSF/MLS/SUM conflicts of interest including THIS GREAT ONE from Billy Haisley. One that  perfectly expresses our feelings on this whole situation... including laying out this gem

MLS never misses opportunity to conflate itself with the very idea of soccer in America, and U.S. Soccer is always far too eager to support this posture. It doesn’t help that the two are also inextricably linked. Soccer United Marketing, an arm of MLS, packages the television rights to both the league and the USMNT when selling to broadcasters. U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati was once MLS’s deputy commissioner. Current commissioner Don Garber maintains a seat on U.S. Soccer’s Board of Directors.

Just remember that Soccer United Marketing aka SUM in the past did not even try to hide it...
Here is their old logo.

Great read on the conflict of interest between MLS and USSF

This is a great summary of many of the major points about the easily apparent conflicts of interests between so many of the parties involved in USSF and MLS. It is a MUST READ blog post...

So far, this is just a normal sort of dispute about policies and procedures. What makes it less normal is the fact that US Soccer appears to be doing its business in the absence of an conflict of interest policies.

READ THE ENTIRE BLOG POST HERE