Solo: Don’t vote for United States hosting bid
LONDON — A World Cup winner and Olympic champion with the United States, Hope Solo now wants her country to lose one of its biggest soccer contests: FIFA’s vote on the 2026 World Cup host.
“I can’t say it should be awarded to Morocco,” Solo told the Associated Press. “But I don’t think it should go to the United States, and that’s hard to say.”
Concerns about the financial dealings of the United States Soccer Federation and the closed men’s league system led Solo to that conclusion.
By choosing to actively campaign against the U.S.-led North America bid, Solo risks alienating herself further from the soccer community in her homeland.
The bid leadership was exasperated when informed Solo was undermining their efforts heading into Wednesday’s vote, dismissing her criticism of the governance of soccer but declining to go on the record in detail.
This is not an isolated eruption against U.S. Soccer. Solo has reason to be disgruntled. After 202 international appearances — a record for an American goalkeeper — Solo was fired over an outburst at the 2016 Olympics against the opposition and a series of off-the-field controversies.
In an attempt to take control of the organization that ostracized her, Solo ran for the U.S. Soccer Federation presidency in February.
There was a resounding verdict: Solo garnered only 1.4 percent of the vote to finish last out of five candidates.
Solo still wants to be heard to try to secure equal pay and equal treatment for the U.S. women’s team, and force Major League Soccer to open up the closed competition. Her gripes provide a counterpoint to the loyal championing of the American World Cup bid by David Beckham in a video released by MLS, where the former England captain is launching a team in Miami. That is only possible because Beckham secured a cut-price deal for an expansion franchise as part of his contract to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy.
“That is not helping the sport in America,” Solo said. “I want to see promotion-relegation in the NASL and the MLS. Right now it’s true, you have rich ownership groups owning MLS teams and they’re only getting richer and they’re alienating everybody else.
“A new ownership group can’t just come in and purchase a team even though they have the financial security, even though they have the commitment. It’s controlled by those single individuals at Soccer United Marketing, MLS in particular, [Commissioner] Don Garber.”
FIFA’s statutes enshrine the principle of a system of promotion and relegation in domestic competitions to ensure participation “shall depend principally on sporting merit.” The regulations then say that qualification can be subject to other criteria including “financial considerations.”
MLS stridently defended itself against Solo’s criticism, saying team owners have invested more than $3 billion in stadium and training facilities to grow the sport because it’s a closed league.
“The structure that we have has given owners certainty to make that type of investment,” MLS President and Deputy Commissioner Mark Abbott told the AP. “Had we had a system of promotion and relegation it would not have been possible to generate that level of investment from owners, local communities or private banks that help to fund some of these facilities.”