Tag: Donald Trump

The Day After American Soccer’s Chrenobyl

American fans of the beautiful game awoke this morning to the desolate wasteland that our US Men’s National Team has become. The smoking husk of a proud footballing nation has been left in ruins after a devastating defeat on a waterlogged pitch in Couva. Today, American fans arise to a future more bleak than at any point in modern American soccer history. This meltdown disaster was self-inflicted, brought about by the hubris of management and failure of the players to see the warning signs flashing along the way.

This systemic failure results in the men’s team missing the World Cup for the first time in over 30 years. This particular failure has many fathers on which we can cast blame, but none should have their feet held to the fire more than Sunil Gulati. This latest failure is by far the greatest shame of his tenure as the President of the US Soccer Federation, which includes several failed bids to host the World Cup and the ongoing scandal that sees the highly successful members of the USWNT paid far less than their male counterparts.

In true sportocrat fashion, Gulati can’t even be bothered to devote his full attention to US soccer development, but splits time as a senior lecturer at Columbia University. Gulati presumably spends the other parts of his day collecting bribes with one hand as he fights corruption with the other as a Vice President of FIFA’s Executive Committee. This hands off approach has led to the byzantine American soccer bureaucracy taking day-to-day control of the talent development and league management. For all the advocacy Gulati has done to stamp out corruption around the world and all the corporate sponsorship money he has collected, there is nothing to show for it on the pitch.

Gulati is also personally responsible for caving into the nativist idiots that called for the hire of an American manager in the wake of Jurgen Klinsmann’s firing. Almost from the beginning of the Klinsmann Era, a certain subset of American soccer fans began groaning about having a foreign manager. America does not have a decorated history of managerial talent or even a coherent national football philosophy on the men’s side. As this groaning turned into a din, Sunil capitulated by hiring Bruce Arena, an aging MLS manager with a commitment to talent developed by the MLS and the NCAA.

This philosophical change and reliance on MLS developed talent, resulted in the US fielding underpowered squads for several qualifying matches. Arena was desperate to find the most in form players, turning to the MLS, where consistent performances are an illusion. The truth is that from tactical, talent pool, and coaching perspectives, the MLS lacks behind other major leagues in all three categories. This is not a league we should be actively looking to developing talent in until major reforms are made.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that spends an extended period of time watching MLS matches. The Designated Player and Salary Cap systems are a joke when transferred from American football to real football and both must be abolished immediately. The collective ownership of players and league allocation of transfers is farcical. These systems result in a highly stratified talent pool and the iniquities in pay result in the league being viewed as the “retirement home” of the football world. Clint Dempsey is compensated at a level 73x of what several of his Seattle Sounders teammates are paid. MLS team ownership values are up 80% from just 2013. The league is in a healthy financial position to implement sweeping changes to a failing system that exists only for the profit of team owners and league management.

While the MLS thrives on their golden throne atop the US soccer pyramid, the other leagues are left to languish with no hope of ever reaching the top flight. Now is the time to implement promotion/relegation across the entire league structure of American soccer. Enough of the excuses that fans won’t attend second tier fixtures when FC Cincinnati attracts an average of over 21,000 fans per game in USL. The MLS has never won the CONCACAF Champions League and without promotion/relegation fueling clubs to succeed, it will continue to falter in international club competitions.

While Gualti, Arena, and the MLS deserve the lion’s share of the blame, the unspoken culprit in all of this is the NCAA. The NCAA is a soccer talent vampire that sucks the life from America’s unparalleled player pool. From the hundreds of thousands of adult men that play soccer in America, do we really think that this was the best 17 we could muster for a must win game on a Tuesday in October? Of course it wasn’t and this is the fault of the NCAA, which harvests the cream of the crop of talent and squanders nearly all of it by cramming a season’s worth of soccer into a 4 month schedule.

The NCAA deprives players of a salary, while comparably aged footballers from around the world are already professionals. The NCAA imposes restrictions on out of season training and competitions, which limits the talent development of 17-22 year olds to a 6 month window, rather than around the year as it is done around the world. The NCAA also imposes other burdens on young soccer players, such as academic requirements and the cost of paying for college expenses that aren’t covered by scholarship.

Last in our list of blame has to be the American “academy” system, which is embarrassing on multiple fronts. From the extortion of parents forced to pay exorbitant fees for pitch time, substandard coaching, and travel teams to the clubs that view these academies as revenue generators. This entire system must be destroyed. The academy system allows parents to buy their child’s way into a club’s academy. Other academies around the world rely on scouts to identify and recruit talent, but in America your parent’s money is good enough. A perfect example of this would be the DC United Academy intake of young Baron Trump.

Every step of this pay-to-play system disenfranchises young potential professionals that do not come from well-to-do socioeconomic backgrounds. Every step of this must be destroyed, burnt to the ground, never to be returned to. It is a system that is unfair to young players, unfair to fans of the beautiful game, and one that squanders the vast majority of talent in our nation. We will be feeling the repercussions of this failure for decades to come. If we do not make sweeping changes with urgency, we will be doomed to repeat this fate that was unimaginable until last night.

Part 1: 110 Reasons Not to Vote for Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a man that is massively disconnected from the reality that Americans live in.

With 110 days until the Presidential Election, I’ve reached a crossroads. The GOP is an absolute clown show and the convention in Cleveland has the party perilously perched on the edge of the abyss. While I am not certain that these are death throes for the party of Lincoln, these are the jaundiced, seizure riddled days that indicate the necessity of a rapid change of course to avoid catastrophic failure. Following two decades of executive power creep, the GOP now seems resigned to nominate a candidate thoroughly unfit to serve as president.

Donald Trump is a man that is massively disconnected from the reality that Americans live in. Aside from never experiencing a life other than opulent wealth, his business credentials are dubious, his methods are suspect, and his qualifications for the presidency are nonexistent. His policy proposals range from the absurd to the morally reprehensible. Trump’s suggestion that America should default on its debts and break existing trade agreements, would thrust the world economy into a state of unprecedented uncertainty and instability. The failed state dystopic solution of deporting over 10 million people from our nation and building a gigantic border wall with Mexico, actually sounds like a rejected plot from a shitty sequel to the Lego Movie. (Walls never work, and have never worked, not even on Game of Thrones)

Donald Trump supporters, you are being had. You are being taken for suckers, punks, fools, rubes, marks, patsys, and idiots. You are being fed a steady diet of falsehoods and half truths.

America is not a failed or failing state, we are militarily, economically, culturally and socially stable. America has problems with education, race relations, gun violence, terrorism, sexism, the influence of money on politics, a shrinking middle class, and more, but electing Donald Trump will solve none of them. This is why every day, for the next 109 days I’ll provide one reason of varying importance as to why you should not vote for Donald Trump.

  1. America should never be put in a position to elect the 49th billed cast member of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to the White House.

What America Can Learn from the Brexit Vote?

Many Americans awoke today to a significantly different world than the one they fell asleep in. The United Kingdom’s referendum vote to leave the European Union has passed and has triggered a series of responses that are having disastrous effects on the global economy. As global markets have responded by tanking the British Pound Sterling to the lowest levels since 1982.

Companies like ITV have seen their stock prices fall by 20% (based on smaller advertising budget projections), while British Airways has already announced a decreased profit projection for 2016. American markets have responded accordingly, seeing the DOW drop by 500 points. These effects are the exact setback that supporters of the “remain campaign” had warned about and are the first set of shockwaves to ripple across the global economy.

Now a new set of referendum votes are expected to take place in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. While this throws the existence and stability of the United Kingdom into question, the country will be faced to make a series of decisions with unknowable outcomes. Will the UK remain a member of the European Economic Area? How will this affect the existing trade deals in place with China and India? Who will govern Gibraltar? How will this affect the work status of millions of legal immigrants in the UK? Will Chelsea be able to make any big signings this summer?

The magnitude of importance of these questions varies, but each will require an answer. The uncertainty in the meantime may cause existing business agreements to be dissolved. It almost certainly makes the UK a more difficult place to do business over the short term. It may also prevent corporations from seeking long term investments in the country. The British Treasury has already declared that leaving the EU would make the British economy “permanently poorer” as a result.

What we do know is that this referendum vote had a historically high turnout of 72.2%. We also know that the current leading trending topic in the UK is “What is the EU?” We also know that working class voters went against their self interest, casting 58% of their ballots in favor of leaving the EU. The projected 6% shrinking of the GDP by 2030 will primarily affect the availability of middle class jobs.

The people that were the most heavily against leaving the EU will also have to live with it the longest. 75% of voters under the age of 24 voted in favor of Remain, but younger voters did not turnout in the same numbers as their older countrymen. The elderly, less educated, and low immigrant area populations of the UK voted greatly in favor of Leave. This is the trend that Americans can learn most from.

The current presidential election, while not quite as simple as a referendum vote, calls into question many of the same issues. Many middle class Donald Trump supporters are lining up to vote similarly against their interests. Trump has already said that he will renege on US participation in several free trade agreements, which would throw the US into a similar state of economic uncertainty. Will the United States pursue a path of economic isolationism and irrational self interest like what is being seen here in the UK?

While the global economy now faces the uncertainty of having one nation negotiating a series of bilateral trade agreements, the United States could be following just around the corner if Trump is elected. The global economy functions best when predictability and order allow business interests to make long-term decisions based on stable projections. Britain has in essence flipped over the chessboard, scattering the pieces across the globe and Donald Trump has threatened to do the same if elected president. If the warning of today’s financial panic can communicate anything to the public, it should be that this uncertainty is not in their interest.

The modicum of self-determination that the United Kingdom gained has come at the cost of potentially ruining the nation as we currently know it. The UK may be an entirely different nation both geographically and economically than the one prior to the Brexit vote. If the UK remains a part of the EEA, they will do so without being represented in discussions regarding the regulations they would be required to follow, undermining the right to self-determination that many Leave voters sought.

The Brexit vote represents what happens when people allow the politics of fear to govern their behavior. David Cameron sought to solidify his base and curtail the rise of the UKIP with the referendum vote, but has seen that roll of the dice explode in his face. He will now resign leaving the country with a leadership crisis amid the growing laundry list of concerns.

America has seen a ramping up of tensions between conservatives and those seeking to protect the rights of immigrants. The xenophobic and anti-intellectual ideations of Trump are remarkably similar to the dialogue heard in Britain prior to yesterday’s vote. If these fearful proposals are allowed to come to fruition, the calamity they cause will be unprecedented. Young and liberal voters must make themselves heard at the polls if America wants to avoid a similar fate.