US Soccer has a new President

On Saturday night US Soccer elected a new president to replace Dr. S. Robert Contiguglia, who stepped down after 8-years. The new chief is Sunil Gulati (pictured), a man who has been involved with almost every major event in recent US soccer history.

With almost 30 years of experience at all levels of soccer in the United States, Gulati has helped the sport rise to new heights across four decades of hands on involvement. He currently serves as the president of Kraft Soccer Properties, taking the position after serving as Major League Soccer's deputy commissioner from its launch until 1999.

At the highly successful FIFA World Cup USA 1994, Gulati served as executive vice president and chief international officer and was a member of the original U.S. World Cup bid committee in the 1980s that helped bring the event to the United States for the first time. He also served on the Board of Directors of FIFA Women's World Cup USA 1999 and 2003 and is currently serving on several FIFA committees.

This is a great background for our new skipper. I hope it will give him the knowledge to continue to improve the US operation while also giving him the confidence to speak to matters in CONCACAF and FIFA. The biggest issue that I hope he speaks about is corruption.

Sadly, the president of CONCACAF, Jack Warner, has proven himself to be, at best, questionably immoral. US Soccer has its problems, but thankfully corruption is not a big one. The US should take the lead in guiding CONCACAF into a better place. Let's clean up our confederation and then let's clean up FIFA.

This will be a difficult challenge, but I think it is one that Mr. Gulati can accomplish.