Soccer Expansion Quotes

Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States.

San Antonio is an ideal market for Major League Soccer. It's time that we put our best foot forward.

I'm facing new challenges in China, the league here is developing and I try to help Chinese football develop here and around the world.

I am excited to bring my deep knowledge, passion and expertise of soccer in this country to The New York Cosmos. They truly represent where this sport is headed on a national and international level, and I want to make history with them.

I've never had a problem finding a team, a league, or a pickup game. Actually, I'm not sure I want soccer to get bigger. We have so many teams in San Francisco that there aren't enough fields.

I get asked this a lot: Why has soccer not succeeded? My answer is, soccer has succeeded. It is already the fastest growing youth participation sport in the U.S. It has already succeeded at the youth level, no question.

The philosophy of FIFA is to expand world soccer space, to spread out the world football space.

It's no secret that I think that MLS is a top five, top six league in the world but they're not the top league.

The MLS is a fantastic competition, and it is growing all the time.

We want the N.W.S.L. to grow. It is growing; it's continuously growing every year. We want it to be sustainable. It's separate in the sense that this is a U.S. Soccer thing, but the idea is to grow soccer in general, and we want to do that any way we can.

It's a massive compliment to me to be known in Asia because Asia is the way forward in football, along with the Middle East. I believe that strongly.

I've seen the growth of this game in this country, the stadiums that were built, the great European players that have come and the great American players who've been created. Americans want to be number one at everything. And they are at baseball, football, basketball. Soccer is growing fast, and I want to be a part of that.

But I think there is a space for a second league, which is UTS, that is more modern, and is targeting a difference audience.

I love Major League Soccer, covered the first game in 1996 in a funky stadium in San Jose, and I applaud just about every move that its commissioners, Garber and Doug Logan, have made.

Over the last 10-15 years, you've seen soccer finally start to grow at a fast pace, start to get the recognition it deserves, and I think it has to do with all of the people who come to America from foreign countries.

Klinsmann should be remembered as a great coach; I don't think a lot of people see it, but as players, we really appreciate what he did for America soccer. He opened American soccer up. He gave it a lot more variety of players. You see German-Americans and Mexican-Americans, and you see the guys that were born in America.

Everyone looks at MLS in a different way, of course. Because of the players coming in, it's a better league than before, of course. Everyone can see that there is potential to improve.

You can't obviously predict the future, but I am a fan of the United States and soccer over there continues to grow.

The more people who come from abroad who played soccer and are brought up playing it and watching it, then come over to America and bring what they know and what they play, that's how the sport will grow.

I think soccer in America is growing exponentially, and it's just going to keep getting bigger.