Hope Solo Running For President Of The U.S. Soccer Federation

Hope Solo announced on Friday that she is running for president of the U.S Soccer Federation by posting an essay about her plans and why she is running.

Sports Illustrated reported that Solo has the three official nominations needed to become an official candidate.

In the essay Solo described how she was from a lower-middle class family and her upbringings shaped her impression of U.S. Soccer. She had to receive handouts from her neighbors and family friends in order to pay the costs for youth soccer and her Olympic Development Program (ODP).

“The system has been set up to discriminate and to overlook the disadvantaged because of an arrogant belief that the United States possesses the worlds best athletes, so therefore we can get away without having the world’s best soccer players […] It is an outdated and a painfully evident reality that the National Teams currently face.”

Solo brought up the point that U.S. Soccer has a “profit over progress” business strategy and is not interested in continuing that. Some soccer programs do ‘scholarship’ kids in but Solo questioned where the money of the organizations would go towards since from her experience she did not see where it really went.

Through Solo’s campaign, she listed four core principles she could be basing her campaign on:

• Creating a winning culture
• Equality and women’s issues
• Youth and diversity at all levels
• Financial governance transparency.

In August, Solo played down suggestions about retirement by saying she was looking to continue her career overseas and potentially earn a place for the 2019 World Cup.

Solo has played for the USWNT for 17 years, won a World Cup title and two Olympic gold medals. She appeared in 202 games and had a record 102 shutouts in her career.

Through her setbacks and pull forwards, Solo ended her essay with;

“Soccer is the world’s game, and I want to share it with all of America.”

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