The U.S. Soccer Federation on Saturday opted to stick with the president who settled the high-profile discrimination case filed by its world champion women’s national team and inked two of the most significant commercial partnerships in the organization’s history—but not by much.
The incumbent Cindy Parlow Cone, who won the Women’s World Cup as a player, defeated her predecessor and challenger, Carlos Cordeiro, by a 52.9%-47.1% margin in a weighted vote conducted by U.S. Soccer members. The result likely will disappoint Cordeiro’s grassroots constituency, but it’ll save the federation from the public, player and sponsor blowback that could’ve followed his election.
Cordeiro, the former USSF treasurer and Goldman Sachs executive, resigned from the presidency in disgrace two years ago following the submission of an outrageously sexist legal filing pertaining to the USWNT's equal-pay lawsuit. He has said he never read the offending passages, but the mechanisms that should’ve prevented their inclusion failed under his watch.
