Friday, January 28, 2011

MLS To Back Off Schedule Shift Following World Cup Snub

Filed under: ,

BALTIMORE -- If FIFA doesn't want to play ball with the United States, than Major League Soccer isn't going to play ball with FIFA.

MLS commissioner Don Garber on Thursday told FanHouse that the league is going to pocket its promise to look into shifting its season to the European fall-to-spring calendar -- it was a promise made to curry favor with FIFA days before the governing body awarded the World Cup to Qatar.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter had pressed the U.S. Soccer Federation, and even President Barack Obama, about MLS's summer schedule.

"It really is going to be a lot of work, but we're making the commitment," Garber said prior to the MLS Cup Final in Toronto. "I think that's going to be big news throughout the world, particularly as we go out to Zurich and try to bring the World Cup back to the United States."

On Thursday, however, a little more than a month after FIFA awarded the world's biggest sporting event to the tiny desert nation of 1.5 million people, prompting some to call for a January 2022 World Cup, Garber had changed his tune.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Natalie Imbruglia Patricia Velásquez Jennifer Morrison Adrianne Palicki Amanda Righetti

No comments:

Post a Comment