Why stick to sports is a lie and how Alan Rothenberg used tactics to conquer American sports—and the world

MLS commissioner Don Garber (left) presents Alan Rothenberg (right) with the Alan I. Rothenberg Legacy Award before the 2015 MLS All Star Game at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

(Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images)

LOS ANGLES––The leather chair creaks. The office rustles with old papers and power.

A man who has brokered dynasties and détentes sits behind a desk, his face weathered by decisions that have etched themselves into the brow like lines on a map. His big-framed glasses bring eyes into focus that have charted territories won and lost.

He moves deliberately. He speaks deliberately.

Like Don Corleone, he has earned the silence—not through threats, but through the gravity of a life spent proving that power is never given, only taken, brokered or bargained for until the moment demands its release.

Alan Rothenberg is not Michael Corleone, though the comparison clings to him like smoke in a closed room.

He built no empire on blood; he built it from contracts, from leverage, from the understanding that sports and politics and power are three strands of a rope that cannot be untwisted without the whole thing fraying.

Now 86, married for 65 years, a father and grandfather who hosts Passover Seders and calls himself an "atheistic Jew," proud of his heritage if not his religiosity.

But make no mistake: Rothenberg believes in power. He believes in leverage.

He believes that the world is run by people who make deals, not by people who play fair.

"Stick to sports," many say when a political or social phenomenon doesn't align with their worldview, as if the field is a sanctuary sealed from history.

As if the 22 players sweating in Lyon in 1998 existed in a vacuum, untouched by the hostage crisis of 1979, unmoved by Iran-Contra, unburdened by the weight of nations.

The futility of that phrase would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. It suggests that games exist outside time, that the World Cup is merely 90 minutes of kicking leather when in fact it is diplomacy by other means, a language spoken in passes and parries that politicians have forgotten how to utter.

Rothenberg learned this early, sitting at his father's knee in a Detroit drugstore, watching Edward Rothenberg dispense medicine and morality in equal measure.

"It was less about power and more about work ethic and ethics," Rothenberg recalled, the pharmacist's son absorbing the lessons that later allowed him to navigate the shark tanks of professional athletics.

His father taught him how to work; the world taught him how to win.

After graduating at the top of his class from the University of Michigan's law school, Rothenberg's education accelerated in California, under the tutelage of Jack Kent Cooke, the mercurial billionaire who slammed a Bible-sized contract onto the young attorney's desk on day one and issued a command: "There hasn't been a contract written yet that can't be broken. Get me out of this."

Cooke was Rothenberg's Vito Corleone—not a mentor of gentle guidance but of hard lessons, teaching that "if you have the upper hand, you use it."

Rothenberg cracked the code using economic duress, discovering that public agencies fear scrutiny more than they crave victory.

It was an awakening.

"I learned something that I hadn't thought about," Rothenberg admitted, "and that was, if you have the power, the other side can either walk away, or if they have the need for whatever the deal is, they accept your terms."

He used this knowledge to build Showtime, to bring Kareem and Magic together in Los Angeles, to transplant the Clippers, and to represent Olympic sprinters, LPGA champions and World Series winners.

By the time he turned to soccer in 1980, he knew the truth: sports at the highest level are not about games; they are about relationships.

It is about knowing when to hold them and when to fold them.

Then came the coup.

In 1990, Rothenberg entered the USSF presidential race two weeks before the election, an outsider to the insular old guard that had run American soccer like a volunteer social club for decades.

He had FIFA's tacit backing.

He had secured the votes of the professional organizations. He had the mathematics of power calculated to the decimal.

"I was extremely confident that I would prevail," Rothenberg said of election day, the understatement of a man who understood that victory is manufactured before the ballots are cast.

Many called him "Rothenweiler" behind his back, sometimes to his face—a nickname suggesting jaws that do not release once they close.

He prefers "The Soccer Czar," the title of a man who ran everything: the Federation, the 1994 World Cup, Major League Soccer's creation, the Women's World Cup chairmanship.

"I was, in fact, running everything in soccer," Rothenberg acknowledged, though he insists he never meant to bulldoze, never intended to leave anyone feeling walked over.

But power leaves its footprints––intentional or not.

The "Mother of All Games arrived in 1998."  The draw in Marseille placed Iran and the United States in the same group, and suddenly, the sport became a medium for history.

Rothenberg considered "soccer diplomacy," the way Ping-Pong had brokered with China, though he joked that an Iraqi referee might improve the optics.

The tensions were palpable, cyclical, eternal.

America and Iran, then as now, danced on the precipice of conflict. Israel watched from the wings. The same players occupied the world stage, pursuing power and control through different means.

"I was also worried about the security aspect of things," Rothenberg remembers, "given the animosity between Iran and the United States."

But here is where sports diverges from politics, where the field becomes a neutral zone, however temporary.

The Iranian fans in France were not the fundamentalists who had deemed America a mortal enemy; they were expatriates, enthusiasts, humans seeking connection through the universal syntax of the game.

"It turned out to be a very pleasant experience rather than a security nightmare," Rothenberg noted, the relief still audible decades later.

The surreal details emerged later: the Iranian Supreme Leader, the late Ayatollah Khamenei, ordered his team not to walk toward the Americans for the pre-match handshake, a standoff resolved by the simple human instinct to compete rather than posture.

But, one problem persisted.

FIFA required Team B, Iran, to walk towards Team A, the U.S.

"Honestly, I don't even remember," Rothenberg said when asked how he resolved it. "Maybe we went first."

Four words that hide a thousand diplomatic cables, masking the reality that a Jewish man from Detroit was negotiating handshake protocol with the Supreme Leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution.

Iran would indeed approach the United States. Yet, they approached them not with animus, but with amicability.

They approached them with bouquets of white flowers.

Before the battle that took place on a green pitch under blue French skies, Iran approached the United States with a gesture of peace.

After the final whistle had blown and Iran had won 2-1, news reached Rothenberg: Iranian officials had confiscated the team's passports at halftime.

They told the players, "If you do not beat the United States, you are not welcome back."

"I didn't hear about that until after the fact," Rothenberg said. "It was sort of a non-factor. They beat us. So if that was the condition, they met the condition."

Non-factor.

That is the language of a man who has seen too much to be surprised by anything.

But of course it affected him.

It proved that sports can create goodwill where politics cannot, that we cheer with political opponents, that we high-five and chest-bump people who hold different beliefs, who pray to different gods, who vote for different leaders.

The stadium becomes a symbol for what we could be if we stopped dividing ourselves.

Today, the cycle continues.

Iran has qualified for the 2026 World Cup.

The tensions between America, Iran and Israel have not resolved; if anything, they have metastasized.

The same issues persist—the pursuit of power, the control of narrative, the threat of imminent conflict.

But Rothenberg remains optimistic, perhaps because optimism is the only rational response for a man who has spent a lifetime watching games transcend their boundaries.

"I sure hope we can avoid something like that," Rothenberg said.

He remembers the Iranian women in Australia, half a dozen ready to seek amnesty, then suddenly changing their minds because they were told their families were in jeopardy.

"I do think, generally speaking, sport seems to override politics," Rothenberg asserted.

History supports him.

In Central America, warring countries have set aside their conflicts to play soccer, resuming their hostilities only after the final whistle.

The Super Bowl proceeded, with ICE told to keep its distance.

The World Cup offers 11 matches in the United States this summer, each an opportunity for the ball to do what diplomacy cannot—bring people together.

At 86, Rothenberg has written his memoir, "The Big Bounce," received the FIFA Order of Merit, entered the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

The book is a celebration of work Rothenberg hopes people to remember.

Although many will celebrate him for the championships, the coups, or the contracts broken under economic duress. Rothenberg mentions family.

He mentions the Passover Seder, the ethical values of his faith, the anchor that held him steady while he navigated rooms full of powerful men.

"I was a very fortunate and blessed person," Rothenberg said, the Corleone comparison falling away to reveal something more vulnerable—the Jewish kid from Detroit who learned that power is a tool, that sports are a language, and that the two cannot be separated, regardless of how loudly the ignorant demand it.

If he could go back to that young attorney from the University of Michigan, what would he tell him?

"If there's a decent opportunity, pursue it," Rothenberg said. "If you don't try, you're not going to succeed. Take advantage of opportunities. Always work as hard as you can, as ethically as you can, lead a moral life, and good things will happen."

He pauses. He leans forward. His voice drops.

"You don't have to have all the wonderful opportunities I had. But you'll have a very successful and gratifying life."

That is the Godfather's blessing. That is the Soccer Czar's benediction.

Stadiums empty. Trophies tarnish. Nicknames fade.

Family remains.

And maybe—just maybe—we can go first.