Hi, I'm Grant Wall, and welcome to the Planet Football Podcast, where I go in depth with the most intriguing people in the world of soccer.

On today's show is part of my series of interviews with the Candidates for U.S. soccer president, I'm joined by Michael

Winograd, a New York attorney with a long background in soccer. We talk about his biggest challenge,

finding a path to victory, and he shares some promising proposals including building

training centers in each state and a novel idea to introduce promotion and

relegation. One of the interim steps that I've talked about, maybe not today, maybe not for a tomorrow thing,

but at least in the closer range, are guest promotion spots.

So for example, tell MLS, your teams have bought into MLS, you're not open to relegation.

You stay in the league regardless.

We will create two promotion spots.

Lower division teams can come up.

If at the end of the season, one of those teams

is within the bottom four, pick a number,

that team drops down, and the spot opens up for a new team to come up.

If it's not within the top four, that guest spot doesn't open up and you wait till the next year.

All that and more coming up.

Joining me now is Michael Wittagrad, one of the eight candidates for US soccer president.

He is currently an attorney at Ropes and Gray, one of New York City's biggest corporate law firms,

and he has a long background in soccer. He played college at

Lafayette and after that in Israel he was director of youth and team development

for the Thank you, Grands. Good to be here. Great to have you here in the studio at Sports Illustrated in New York.

I want to start by asking you a question.

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