Tom Dunmore of Pitch Invasion broke down the US World Cup bid yesterday; among Tom's observations was a note that there is no mention of the country's top-tier professional league (that would be MLS) on the bid's "The Game is in US" page. It might seem a small detail, especially in light of the relative brevity of the text, but as the first page in the presentation of why the US should host the World Cup, and the page sharing a title with the bid's tag line, it is a little odd.
Major League Soccer is a direct result of the last time the United States hosted the World Cup, after all, so it would make sense to highlight the league's growth since '96. Instead, the bid site focuses on the fairly ubiquitous grassroots nature of the game in US, and while it is worth pointing out that the game is played in "our schoolyards and stadiums, our church parking lots and cornfields, our back alleys and beachfronts, pulsing through our cities and suburbs and countryside", shouldn't there be some mention of MLS specifically?
I'm sure that I'm overstating the reasons for the lack of MLS mentions on the US bid website, but I just wonder if perhaps it was a conscious decision, and therefore indicative of a particular attitude towards the league on the part of the bid organizers. If that is the case, there are only two legitimate possibilities for why; shame, meaning the bid is avoiding MLS because the league is just not very good, or practicality, meaning the bid committee recognizes that too much MLS talk might unfairly hurt the bid, and that combating negative perception would be too difficult.
Remember that the bid will be presented to soccer's Illuminati, men from all over the world who have preconceived notions of the American game; if the bid committee believed the reputation of MLS (fair or not) to be a hindrance in securing the tournament, perhaps they simply chose to minimize focus on the league. Not only would that be unfortunate if true, it's just plain depressing. The United States wants to host the World Cup again, and fourteen years after the return of national first division professional soccer, the bid organizers are perhaps better served to ignore it than to put any spotlight on it.
Still, for me, an avowed fan of the league, there's little indignation. Of course the bid should mention MLS more, and of course the professional game here should be a heavier focus for the outward presentations; but if it being so would hurt American chances of bringing back the World Cup, then it's difficult for me to be angry. I have little patience for the condescending attitudes so many around the world seem to have for Major League Soccer, but I don't lose sleep over the perceptions of people who have little or nothing to do with the game here. The World Cup bid is a different story, and while I would love for the committee to be able to educate the dismissive football snobs of the world, it would be dangerous to attempt to do so.
MLS is not great, certainly not by the standards of top-tier European nations where so many of FIFA's power brokers hail from; but it's better than it's often given credit for, and it is maddening that it should be seen as a handicap for the US World Cup bid efforts.
The bid committee has one job, and one job alone; win the right to host the World Cup. Maybe in eight or twelve years when the United States is hosting the tournament again, Major League Soccer won't have to be hidden away anymore.
