Gold Cup still struggles for big recognition

NEW YORK – Fourteen years after they initiated the Gold Cup, CONCACAF officials boast that their tournament revenue has increased 800 percent and teams from the region have improved. But the biennial tourney is struggling for recognition at home and abroad, and many teams don’t send all their top players.

“It used to have an interesting appeal,” said former U.S. team forward Eric Wynalda, now a TV analyst. “I used to look forward to playing in it. It had the best the countries could offer.

“Now it’s a middle-class tournament. I don’t think it’s as special as it used to be.”

When FIFA started its monthly rankings 12 years ago, no CONCACAF nation was in the top 10, one was listed among the top 25 and nine were among the top 100. After eight editions of the Gold Cup, two CONCACAF countries are in the top six, three are in the top 25 and nearly a dozen are counted among the best hundred.

With the Gold Cup generating CONCACAF eight times the revenue it did in 1991, CONCACAF general secretary Chuck Blazer – who would not give specific figures – said the tournament funds every major development program in the confederation.

Blazer said the objective of the Gold Cup is to keep the national teams – especially from the smaller Central American and Caribbean countries – continually playing so as to better prepare them for international competition.

Other economic gauges also are encouraging for CONCACAF, soccer’s governing body for North and Central America and the Caribbean. The Spanish-language broadcast of the Jamaica-Mexico first-round match earlier this month was the highest-rated sports program among Hispanics living in the United States in the past 10 months.