Hope Solo opposes the U.S.-led 2026 World Cup bid...

Add to that, California has a plan in place to 'tax the air you breathe'....imagine the revenue!

After reading about the water restrictions, it would not surprise me if they started taxing the air we breathe. Only eight years and 7 months until I can retire and move to a state that will not regulate and tax the crap out of it's people. I just don't understand why people continue to vote the same morons into state government every election.
 
After reading about the water restrictions, it would not surprise me if they started taxing the air we breathe. Only eight years and 7 months until I can retire and move to a state that will not regulate and tax the crap out of it's people. I just don't understand why people continue to vote the same morons into state government every election.
Deplorable.
You might even be able to buy real weapons there as well.
 
Add to that, California has a plan in place to 'tax the air you breathe'....imagine the revenue!
For the record it already does. Income tax is tied to location of activities and residency (i.e. breathing in California).
 
She is the Tanya Harding of US Soccer. Great goalie, but needs to just keep her mouth shut and avoid getting arrested.

Uhh Tonya Harding had a husband who hired someone to break the legs of her opponent... which, while she still denies any blame, Tonya has now admitted that she at least "overheard something" about while promoting her whiney biopic.

Hope Solo probably would've just done it herself.

They were both on Dancing with the Stars though...
 
How do you know there will be any economic benefit? Given the way things are going, more security will be required then ever, depending upon the teams, and it could be a logistic nightmare.
The major costs for hosting sporting events is 1) preparing the bid, 2) the bid fee and then 3) building infrastructure to host the event.

I’m pretty sure the US has enough stadiums that meet minimum requirements such that item 3) would be close to zero. When item 3) is zero, that drastically reduces the cost of item 1) because you don’t have to prepare architecture plans, site plans, all the other construction stuff involved to show you can build a viable stadium.

Item 1) cost should also be reduced because a lot of the cost of “preparing the bid” is bribing the right officials, but a lot of the most corrupt FIFA officials have been arrested or ousted after the Qatar debacle. Plus we have weak competition for 2026 so far, so we shouldn’t have to spend as much money to convince officials when the obvious choice is the US.

I can’t sit here and say for sure that we will profit from WC2026, but we won’t suffer what Brazil and China did from overbuilt, white elephant stadiums that can be used for one sporting event and then slowly rot away. My guess is that the tourist money, tv money, money WC teams spend in the US should make us a profit. But even if we don’t profit, it will be a minimal loss, and soccer in the US will definitely grow from having the WC.
 
Hope Solo has always been a sort of conundrum. How many times do we hear coaches say great goalkeepers are unique or different -- they need to be confident in their decisions and believe they can stop every shot, they need to be vocal and direct their teammates, organize the game, take control, and they have to be a little bit crazy, willing to charge at a player who is about to kick them in the head, put their face in front of a soccer ball tavelling 70 mph (or more).

Yet in the case of Hope, who had/has all those qualities and more (her special talents become even more obvious with every game the USWNT plays without her), we wanted all that keeper uniqueness in a polite package.

U r right on the qualities making her a great keeper make her unsuited to be a politician. IMO the USSF screwed up banning her. Who cares about the controversy, get the best girls on the pitch,
 
The major costs for hosting sporting events is 1) preparing the bid, 2) the bid fee and then 3) building infrastructure to host the event.

I’m pretty sure the US has enough stadiums that meet minimum requirements such that item 3) would be close to zero. When item 3) is zero, that drastically reduces the cost of item 1) because you don’t have to prepare architecture plans, site plans, all the other construction stuff involved to show you can build a viable stadium.

Item 1) cost should also be reduced because a lot of the cost of “preparing the bid” is bribing the right officials, but a lot of the most corrupt FIFA officials have been arrested or ousted after the Qatar debacle. Plus we have weak competition for 2026 so far, so we shouldn’t have to spend as much money to convince officials when the obvious choice is the US.

I can’t sit here and say for sure that we will profit from WC2026, but we won’t suffer what Brazil and China did from overbuilt, white elephant stadiums that can be used for one sporting event and then slowly rot away. My guess is that the tourist money, tv money, money WC teams spend in the US should make us a profit. But even if we don’t profit, it will be a minimal loss, and soccer in the US will definitely grow from having the WC.
I agree that bids and infrastructure are the major costs but who knows what the world will be like in 8 years. With increase in the cost of security at stadiums rising sharply over the last few years,
the cost ticket prices and lower attendance numbers at many events and the desire to remodel stadiums for the World Cup, I don’t think we can speculate that it will be a winner.

And why would he want to grow the sport? That just means more crazy parents!
 
So I went looking for the latest Audited Financial Statements for US Soccer because they include a discussion on material litigation and probability of an outcome including accruals and wanted to see if I could find out anything about the Hope Solo case. Not only did I not find the 2017 Audited Financial Statements posted, but I realized the 2017 year end was March 31, 2017 and their Audited Opinions are generally issued in the fall after their year end (March 31). Hmmm Here is a link to an interesting article that summarizes the tax information that they did post but was very late because of filing extensions.

Maybe somebody has already gone off on this and I missed it but this NOT FOR PROFIT business has $110 million invested in public traded securities. Without financial statements I don't know the risk they invested in but on the face, this appears ???????

https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2018/2/21/17034108/us-soccer-releases-2017-financial-records
 
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Maybe somebody has already gone off on this and I missed it but this NOT FOR PROFIT business has $110 million invested in public traded securities. Without financial statements I don't know the risk they invested in but on the face, this appears ???????

https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2018/2/21/17034108/us-soccer-releases-2017-financial-records

Non-profits are businesses and good business dictates you have at least 6 months to 1 year of reserves to cover cash flow challenges. Investing those reserves in the stock market can make sense depending on the type of stocks/bonds. Stronger non-profits will have up to 2 years of reserves. With operating expenses of at least $105M, it would seem to me that the USSF is on good financial footing.

The concern I have with the USSF is all of its eggs are in the national program basket. It only generated about $10M in membership fees. Of course when you consider the Youth Affiliates get most of the youth revenue it makes sense, but $10M in membership fees for a membership driven non-profit is concerning.
 
Non-profits are businesses and good business dictates you have at least 6 months to 1 year of reserves to cover cash flow challenges. Investing those reserves in the stock market can make sense depending on the type of stocks/bonds. Stronger non-profits will have up to 2 years of reserves. With operating expenses of at least $105M, it would seem to me that the USSF is on good financial footing.

The concern I have with the USSF is all of its eggs are in the national program basket. It only generated about $10M in membership fees. Of course when you consider the Youth Affiliates get most of the youth revenue it makes sense, but $10M in membership fees for a membership driven non-profit is concerning.

It is usually recommended that Non-profit reserves be invested in easily accessible low risk investments and considering they were tracking at a loss as of 3/31/16, that does not appear to be the case. I just wonder why they haven't disclosed their financial statements since they usually do it 6 or 7 months after their year end and it is now 14 months after the year ended 3/31/17.
 
It is usually recommended that Non-profit reserves be invested in easily accessible low risk investments and considering they were tracking at a loss as of 3/31/16, that does not appear to be the case. I just wonder why they haven't disclosed their financial statements since they usually do it 6 or 7 months after their year end and it is now 14 months after the year ended 3/31/17.
https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2017/5/18/15639840/us-soccer-100-million-a-long-time-in-the-making
 
.....US Soccer because they include a discussion on material litigation and probability of an outcome including accruals and wanted to see if I could find out anything about the Hope Solo case.
Do they mention anywhere if they are a 'captive' model? Even if it's unlikely they would publish any discussed reserve ... they do seem quite secretive.

From the article:
"For a Federation whose remit is to further the game of soccer in the USA, it’s an odd choice to consistently invest the majority of their assets in things that don’t further the game. Are there some soccer based ventures that might provide a return and improve infrastructure at the same time? The fact that US Soccer quietly releases their financial statements every year makes it even more odd that they don’t publicly justify their strategy. As ticket prices for US national team matches increase you would think Sunil Gulati would feel some sense of responsibility to divulge his plans for the money and not just tuck it quietly into the latest ETF."
 
So I went looking for the latest Audited Financial Statements for US Soccer because they include a discussion on material litigation and probability of an outcome including accruals and wanted to see if I could find out anything about the Hope Solo case. Not only did I not find the 2017 Audited Financial Statements posted, but I realized the 2017 year end was March 31, 2017 and their Audited Opinions are generally issued in the fall after their year end (March 31). Hmmm Here is a link to an interesting article that summarizes the tax information that they did post but was very late because of filing extensions.

Maybe somebody has already gone off on this and I missed it but this NOT FOR PROFIT business has $110 million invested in public traded securities. Without financial statements I don't know the risk they invested in but on the face, this appears ???????

https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2018/2/21/17034108/us-soccer-releases-2017-financial-records

Yup being posting for years about how the wall street investment bankers have used soccer including some local youth clubs for years to make larger sums of $ out of "non profit" fund investment. You know the cut for these investors is pretty good so they normally go for higher yields.
http://www.socalsoccer.com/threads/...-sport-holding-the-national-team.15240/unread

You might be surprised to find investment bankers & lawyers either as pres/vp and/or on the boards of several clubs who give advise on where/how to play the shell games with all that money that goes through the clubs....Millions at stake...
 
Yup being posting for years about how the wall street investment bankers have used soccer including some local youth clubs for years to make larger sums of $ out of "non profit" fund investment. You know the cut for these investors is pretty good so they normally go for higher yields.
http://www.socalsoccer.com/threads/...-sport-holding-the-national-team.15240/unread

You might be surprised to find investment bankers & lawyers either as pres/vp and/or on the boards of several clubs who give advise on where/how to play the shell games with all that money that goes through the clubs....Millions at stake...

This is nonsense. US Soccer likely has the largest reserves of any soccer entity, and even if they are paying a full 1% management fee, that means some lucky company is making $1 million to manage this portfolio, gross. If they were giving away 20% of the upside to a hedge fund, that would be listed as their investment. I expect US Soccer pays less than 1%, but it is not worth my time to look it up. How they spend this money is a worthy discussion.

All non-profit youth clubs file tax returns if they want to maintain their non-profit status, and must disclose not only reserves and investments, but payments made to any officers and directors. So find the club IRS 990 filings that prove your hypothesis, and link them here. No investment banker or lawyer in their right mind would risk their career or license over the few thousand bucks they could make by de-frauding a youth soccer club and playing some shell game. As for the millions of dollars at stake, large clubs pull in around $2 million in fees and revenues a year, and pay out 80-85% of this in coaching salaries and field costs alone (also available on these forms to see). The balance is registration fees, league fees, and general overhead.

Most of the clubs who are not non-profits do not have boards, and are run by coaches/DOCs. Very few coaches are current or former Wall Street professionals.

You got a problem with a non-profit youth board, go join one and run a club for a while. Stop smearing those who volunteer their time, and also often donate a lot of money for scholarships -- one reason why bankers and lawyers are often on these boards. The other reason is that they need experienced people to help them comply with the reporting and filing requirements, and manage the legal risks, if they do not want to pay third parties thousands for this service.
 
Yup being posting for years about how the wall street investment bankers have used soccer including some local youth clubs for years to make larger sums of $ out of "non profit" fund investment. You know the cut for these investors is pretty good so they normally go for higher yields.
http://www.socalsoccer.com/threads/...-sport-holding-the-national-team.15240/unread

You might be surprised to find investment bankers & lawyers either as pres/vp and/or on the boards of several clubs who give advise on where/how to play the shell games with all that money that goes through the clubs....Millions at stake...

Yeah I don't think that is the case considering they only paid $153k in fees on approximately $94M in investments for 2016 and $200k in fees on $110M investment in 2017. Those fees appear very low.
 
This is nonsense. US Soccer likely has the largest reserves of any soccer entity, and even if they are paying a full 1% management fee, that means some lucky company is making $1 million to manage this portfolio, gross. If they were giving away 20% of the upside to a hedge fund, that would be listed as their investment. I expect US Soccer pays less than 1%, but it is not worth my time to look it up. How they spend this money is a worthy discussion.

All non-profit youth clubs file tax returns if they want to maintain their non-profit status, and must disclose not only reserves and investments, but payments made to any officers and directors. So find the club IRS 990 filings that prove your hypothesis, and link them here. No investment banker or lawyer in their right mind would risk their career or license over the few thousand bucks they could make by de-frauding a youth soccer club and playing some shell game. As for the millions of dollars at stake, large clubs pull in around $2 million in fees and revenues a year, and pay out 80-85% of this in coaching salaries and field costs alone (also available on these forms to see). The balance is registration fees, league fees, and general overhead.

Most of the clubs who are not non-profits do not have boards, and are run by coaches/DOCs. Very few coaches are current or former Wall Street professionals.

You got a problem with a non-profit youth board, go join one and run a club for a while. Stop smearing those who volunteer their time, and also often donate a lot of money for scholarships -- one reason why bankers and lawyers are often on these boards. The other reason is that they need experienced people to help them comply with the reporting and filing requirements, and manage the legal risks, if they do not want to pay third parties thousands for this service.

I guess you don't know who manages those funds are what they really make each year.

Big clubs two mil in revenue, nope your way off, 4m+ plus and some are much more than that.

Non-profit sports is a 4+ billion dollar industry and you're taking about some volunteers likes it's some small time enterprises of mom & pops. There are some great volunteer organizations but US soccer is not one of them.

I like my local medium sized club but heck when they have a million+ in reserves invested on 3.5 mil in revenue and have board members who don't even have kids playing and they all work in the finance or law it's clear what's going on and somebody besides the kids are profiting in some way, indrectly or not. I don't mind playing but I don't pretend like the profits are going back to the club or the fees are being reduced, they increase every year and I see the 990 showing increased levels of investments each year because without them they can't balance the ledge, they would have to show a profit. Regular businesses can't do this and would be subject to taxes. Pretty simple
 
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