Involvement Of Indicted Marketing Firm Still A Concern For U.S. Soccer Around Copa America

The continued involvement of marketing firm Datisa "remains the biggest stumbling block to U.S. Soccer agreeing to go ahead and host" the Copa América Centenario in '16, according to a USSF source cited by Grant Wahl of SI.com. Datisa, a joint venture between Traffic Sports, Torneos y Competencias and Fair Play, "still owns the marketing rights to the Copa América Centenario" despite being accused of agreeing to pay $110M in bribes to FIFA officials. The USSF over the summer "gave a list of conditions" that CONMEBOL, the South American federation organizing the tournament, "had to agree to in order for U.S. Soccer to be willing to host the tournament." Those conditions "haven’t been laid out in detail publicly." Sources said that CONMEBOL "agreed to some of the conditions but has yet to agree to all of them." For its part, CONMEBOL "is trying to put public pressure on U.S. Soccer by announcing that the tournament will go ahead as scheduled next summer in the U.S. -- but that’s not CONMEBOL’s decision to make on its own." The tournament "can’t take place in the U.S. unless U.S. Soccer agrees to it." For now, USSF execs "sound pessimistic that they’ll get what they need from CONMEBOL and Datisa to agree to host the tournament next summer." So an event that "seemed perfect will likely end up being viewed as a gigantic missed opportunity." The Copa América Centenario, which brings together the best teams of CONCACAF and CONMEBOL and is supposed to be held in the U.S. for the first time in June ’16, only a has "glimmer of hope" of still being held as scheduled (SI.com, 9/18).