TORONTO -- MLS commissioner and Soccer United Marketing CEO Don Garber said that SUM will lose in excess of $10 million due to the failure of the U.S. men's national team to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
SUM is the financial and commercial partner for the U.S. Soccer Federation, and as part of its arrangement makes guaranteed payments to the USSF.
"We'll have an eight-figure financial loss directly impacted by the men not being in Russia because of the impact on our commercial sponsorships that we are obligated and contracted to provide," said Garber in a wide-ranging interview with ESPN FC.
Garber added that there would be other losses surrounding the qualifying failure that he couldn't put a dollar amount on.
"We actually belive that the market grows when the men are in the World Cup -- like the women in the World Cup -- because people are sharing their excitement around soccer fans, sharing their excitement for the men and bringing in non-soccer fans," he said. "Then we as an industry can take advantage of that. We're going to miss that for four years. I can't even quantify what impact that will have, but certainly it's not going to be good."
The relationship between the USSF, MLS and SUM has been criticized as having an inherent conflict of interest whereby the USSF favors MLS. The issue has been raised during the North American Soccer League's anti-trust lawsuit against the USSF. When this aspect of the USSF/MLS/SUM relationship was brought up, Garber vigorously defended the arrangement.
"There is no conflict between MLS and U.S. Soccer," he said. "To think that there would be a conflict between the federation and a Division I men's league is just noise to me. The perception that SUM is conflicted in its commercial relationship with the USSF ... our league and SUM have paid our federation hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, and in financial guarantees as part of the SUM relationship. Those revenues have stabilized the federation, and helped created the [growth] that they have. I would do that again in a heartbeat, because in order for the sport to grow, we need a strong, and financially viable federation.
"I don't remotely think it's a conflict. I think that there are a lot of special interests who think that they are."
When asked if he was referring to the NASL, Garber declined to comment, but insisted that he recuses himself on any matter before the USSF Board that involves SUM.
"Whether it's an MLS employee on the board, or whether it's an athlete is either working for one of our clubs or working for the league, any discussion on the SUM deal we are 100 percent recused on," he said. "I have never participated in any decision as a board member that the federation has made about its relationship with SUM. That is an absolute."
Garber was earlier asked to what extent MLS was responsible for the failure by the men's national team to qualify for the World Cup. He responded by saying the responsibility is shared by the game's various stakeholders, but added that there has been too much finger pointing.
"I've said many times that as a fan, as commissioner of a league and as member of the U.S. Soccer Board, I was very disappointed and in many ways heartbroken by not qualifying," he said. "But there has been so much blame being thrown around trying to demonize either an entity or decisions that have been made or individuals. While I understand it, I don't think it's productive.
"We need to use this as a wakeup call to recognize that there are things that we as a league and we as a federation and we as those responsible for the development of players at the youth level, should assess where we are and try to come together as opposed to break apart to figure out how we can get better and make sure that this never happens again."