Will FIFA's scandal damage U.S. youth soccer?

Dave Carton grew up dreading rainy Saturdays. He looked forward to his club soccer games all week and rain could ruin the game. Growing up in Ireland, soccer meant home. He spent every spare minute outside, playing with his friends.

“The game is important and it can bring people together,” Carton, now coaching in the United States, said. “You get kids from the streets and from the penthouses and they are playing the same sport at the same age.”

Carton hopes to share his love for the game with American young people. But he fears the scandal surrounding FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, could damage his chances.

“I think FIFA can be cleaned up,” Carton said, “I think the people that are on the high level need to realize that they have a responsibility to those who are on the grass roots.”

That’s what the opponents of reelected FIFA chief, Sepp Blatter, want. Michael Platini, president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the biggest soccer confederation after FIFA, led the opposition to Blatter. Further change is crucial, he said, if FIFA is to “regain its credibility.”

UEFA is meeting on Friday to discuss ways to pressure Blatter, which could include a European boycott of the 2018 World Cup.

That solution doesn’t make Carton happy.

“It wouldn’t be a World Cup then, would it?...It would fragment the global game and that would not be a positive thing,” he said.

Instead, Carton hopes for real FIFA reforms: term limits to keep people like Blatter out, qualification requirements for officials, and a full internal audit.

“If it had made a change on Friday, I think the world would have got behind FIFA,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.