'It's not realistic': Could a woman ever be elected US Soccer president?

US Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati will be challenged for the first time in his 11-year reign in an election this February but one voice is missing among the list of potential candidates hoping to unseat him.

A woman.

Former player and current Fox Sports analyst Eric Wynalda is understood to be close to formally joining Boston attorney Steve Gans and former indoor soccer league executive Paul Lapointe in challenging Gulati. Yet, even with women’s soccer establishing itself as a legitimate force on the American sports landscape, a female in the top job seems unlikely.

According to Julie Foudy, a former captain of the US women’s national team and an analyst with broadcaster ESPN, the lack of gender diversity at the top of the US Soccer Federation is emblematic of the management of the sport and a situation that that won’t change within the current culture and structure of the organization.

Foudy, who says she is regularly asked if she will run for president of US Soccer, says the federation is a lot of talk and little action when it comes to creating pathways for women to reach top management roles in the sport. Foudy also says that most women are unable to even consider running for the position because it is an unpaid role with a high workload.

“How much work does Sunil do for a volunteer position?” Foudy says. “There’s no pay for the president so what woman who needs an income or is raising kids is going to say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be able to volunteer 30 or 40 hours a week that take me away from family and my real job’. It’s not realistic. The position itself needs restructuring if you are going to get more women engaged in it.”

As the governing body of the sport in the United States, US Soccer holds power over both men’s and women’s soccer with responsibility for national teams, professional and amateur leagues, and youth development, among other roles. The women’s national team is successful on the field – as well as off. A women’s national league is growing and the national team is a genuine revenue stream for the federation – and others. The 2015 Women’s World Cup, hosted by Canada and won by the US, generated over $40m in ad revenue for host broadcaster Fox, doubling projections.

“I have been involved with US Soccer for 30 years and I don’t remember one senior woman in the organization that you would deal with on a daily basis in a position that was making decisions,” Foudy says. “That is a huge issue. How many times do you hear, ‘There are no women around?’ Well, they are fishing in the wrong pond.”

“What interests me is growing the game and to do that you need a diversified perspective,” Foudy says. “The reason you don’t see women running for president is that you don’t see women at higher levels in soccer in general - from the board to the ‘C suites’ to US youth soccer. That is a big problem.”

Foudy points to women’s soccer icon Mia Hamm and ex-national team goalkeeper Mary Harvey as potential candidates for US Soccer president. A former member of the US Soccer board, Harvey was goalkeeper with the US women’s national team that won the landmark 1991 Women’s World Cup. Her post-playing career includes roles as Fifa’s director of development and chief operating officer of Women’s Professional Soccer, the precursor to the National Women’s Soccer League.

Asked if she would consider running for president she says: “Maybe, one day.”

Harvey says she’s motivated by cultural change and points to Title IX which, in part, opened up gender equality in schools and university sports programs - and the Amateur Sports Act a 1978 law that shut down arbitrary bans by the Amatuer Athletic Union on women participating in sports - as handing the US a head start in creating female leaders in sports. However, taking advantage of those laws has not necessarily translated to more places for women in soccer’s boardrooms or corner offices.

“It is 26 years after the [US] women won the World Cup and we have generations of players and referees and coaches who got to law school, business school, and work and they all have the game inside them,” Harvey said.

“The question is, are we attracting enough of them back to the game? They are there. I want to invoke the ‘binders full of women’ from Mitt Romney. I would posit there are tremendous people out there and we are not attracting them. They are off at Google or Facebook or Amazon or wherever. We would love to get more of them engaged.”

US Soccer’s 17-person board currently includes four women. In August, Lisa Carnoy, an executive with Bank of America, joined former player Angela Hucles, Clinton Foundation president Donna Shalala, and Val Ackerman, Commissioner of the Big East collegiate athletic conference, on the board.

Should it ever elect a female president, US Soccer would join a list that includes Liberia, Turks and Caicos Islands, Burundi, and Sierra Leone in electing a woman to head its federation. Lydia Nsekera was Burundi Football Federation president between 2004 and 2014 and the first-ever woman to hold a voting position on Fifa’s executive committee. Izetta Sombo Wesley was president of the Liberian Football Association from 2004 to 2010.

Today, Sonia Bien-Aime, elected in 2014, is president of Turks and Caicos Football Association and the first woman elected to a non-female designated seat on Fifa’s Council. Isha Johansen has been president of the Sierra Leone Football Association since 2013.

“There are a few countries with female heads but the USA is not going to be in that list in the near future unless things change,” says Julie Foudy.

“Even though we have made great strides here it is too slow, in my opinion. I would love US Soccer to have a plan in place that says we are going to reach these targets and this is what our goal is. This is what we need and this is what we are going to do.”

While Mary Harvey agrees with Foudy that the role of US Soccer’s president needs to be redefined (“I don’t look at it as US Soccer, I look at it as a $100 million company,” she says) she is more optimistic about a future female president.

“As crazy as it sounds, it is not crazy to see a woman as president,” she says.

Harvey points to US Soccer’s Athlete Council - an advisory committee made up of former players - as a source of future leaders for the organization.

“It has historically had good representation from both men and women and we would love to see an athlete elected to a senior role in the organization,” Harvey says.

“I think it is possible to one day have an athlete and one day to have a woman as president of US Soccer. They could be the same person but but either one is very possible.”