When Cindy Parlow Cone took over as president of U.S. Soccer in 2020, the federation and the sport in the country felt as fractured as it ever had.
The next five years under Parlow Cone’s leadership — which included a tight re-election campaign in 2022 — presented numerous challenges, from the COVID-19 pandemic, an equal pay lawsuit, two collective bargaining agreement negotiations and the Sally Yates report. Somehow, U.S. Soccer emerged from it all looking like a more united organization, and one with real momentum heading into the 2026 World Cup.
For Parlow Cone, who has spent her life in the sport, the work started with one idea: building trust.
“You can’t build it overnight,” Cone told The Athletic in a phone interview from Atlanta, where U.S. Soccer held its annual general meeting this week. “When I won the last election, there were many who still didn’t really know me, didn’t know what I was all about. And I’ve been trying to be as transparent as I can be and as consistent, and I think we’ve built trust through saying what we’re going to do and then actually following through on that. It sounds simple, but it’s really important. If you want to build trust, you have to build it slowly. I couldn’t change everything overnight. I had to share my…
