US Soccer officially announces presidential candidates

So, there may be some big local news today, but there’s big national news, as well:

2018 U.S. Soccer Presidential Candidates (listed alphabetically)

Paul Caligiuri, Kathy Carter, Carlos Cordeiro, Steve Gans, Kyle Martino, Hope Solo, Michael Winograd, Eric Wynalda

To be placed on the ballot, candidates were required to:

• Complete a background check

• Submit at least three (3) letters of nomination on official letterhead from Organization Members (as defined in Bylaw 302) and/or one of three Athlete Members of the Board of Directors

In the non-shocker of the century, the pool is “everybody who publicly announced a candidacy except for the one person who might be insane in a very literal sense.” Maybe it’s a little surprising that Hope Solo’s legal issues made it through the background check unscathed, I guess.

Now that the pool has been defined, a deep dive into the proposed policies, programs, etc. of each of them is in order. I think just about everyone outside of MLS/SUM/Sunil Gulati’s house probably dismisses Kathy Carter and Carlos Cordeiro off the bat (though that doesn’t mean they don’t have serious voting bloc support – nor necessarily that they deserve to get that low level of consideration).

I’ve made no secret that I’m in favor of Kyle Martino’s platform to date, but could see myself supporting any of the other candidates, too.