Matt Gaetz Targets U.S. Soccer Anthem Kneeling With Potentially Unconstitutional Legislation

If you’re surprised to be reading the words “Matt Gaetz” and “U.S. Soccer” together, you’re probably not alone. The second-term Republican congressman from Florida’s 1st district admits he is not a well-versed fan of the game. As far as athletes from his community in the Florida Panhandle, the most famous are hall of fame NFL running back Emmitt Smith and former boxing pound-for-pound king Roy Jones Jr.

But circumstances have conspired to bring the 38-year-old politician and the Beautiful Game together. In the wake of growing outrage over the death of George Floyd at the hand of Minneapolis police, and amid growing public acceptance of the Black Lives Matter movement, the U.S. Soccer Federation on Tuesday reversed its three-year-old policy prohibiting players from kneeling during the anthem to protest police brutality. (The USSF originally implemented the policy shortly after US women’s national team player Megan Rapinoe took a knee to support similar protests from the NFL’s Colin Kaepernick and others.)

That news, in his own words, “triggered” Gaetz into announcing Friday he would draft legislation to force the USSF to go back on that policy change or face financial consequences.

“I certainly think that we have the right to compel that our national team stand for the national anthem,” Gaetz said on his podcast. “While our anthem is playing, while you serve on the team, I think there is an obligation to respect our country.”

With a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and the recent shifting of public opinion around Black Lives Matter and police brutality, the bill is probably a non-starter. Perhaps Gaetz even knows this and is proposing the measure for political posturing. Because were he serious, he would face two sizable roadblocks:

1) The measure would violate FIFA’s ban on third-party interference in the business of national federations. This, as Anne Peterson of the Associated Press points out, would be especially problematic given the United States is set to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup alongside Mexico and Canada.

2) While we don’t know the specifics of the bill, which are scheduled to be released on Saturday evening, it seems likely to clash with the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment, which reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

As a non-profit employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation had the right to restrict the speech of its employees, which includes kneeling during the national anthem as symbolic speech. That’s different than the legislature using its power to make laws requiring that the U.S. Soccer Federation restrict a certain kind of speech.

This is not to say the federal government could not redirect funding aimed toward the USSF — most likely money set aside to facilitate hosting the 2026 World Cup — because members of the legislature are generally displeased with the USSF’s new stance. Congress has the ultimate power of the federal purse strings, and can allocate funds how it sees fit. Last year, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin threatened to punish the USSF in this way without a resolution to the equal pay debate that was favorable to players for the women’s national team.

But although the USSF fields teams that compete under the nation’s colors, they are not bankrolled by regular federal funding, and players who compete for the USSF are in no way being directly financially supported by the government. Instead, the federation generates revenue from private contributions, corporate sponsorships, and selling match tickets and broadcasting rights fees. It’s even unclear how much federal funding might be required to stage the 2026 tournament, since most of the proposed venues and infrastructure needs are already in place.

In other words, a federal law that expressly spells out a relationship between funding and anthem policy would almost certainly face a credible legal challenge, since the government is not acting as an employer.

Even if the language of Gaetz’s drafted bill is designed to obfuscate that relationship, the congressman is already on the public record as indicating the bill would be drafted for that purpose. And it would be hard to prove some other credible need for a federal law, since the federation’s statute requiring players to stand for the anthem had been in place for only three of its 107 years of existence.