Major Link Soccer: The USSF presidential election is finally here

Seattle

Washington’s “bot ban,” formally known as the Ticket Sellers Act, is revealing for the first time that it has teeth. Two Massachusetts ticket-buying companies will pay $60,000 for using bots to scoop up valuable tickets as soon as they are available, only to resell them at a premium.

Major League Soccer

The free-agent market in MLS is moving slowly this offseason, with fewer than half of available players settled in to a new contract. Here’s why.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic at LA Galaxy? His potential teammates say they’d love to play with the aging striker.

United States

Votes are cast tomorrow for the US Soccer presidential election. The process has involved plenty of drama and politics, and Grant Wahl has your guide for what to know ahead of Saturday.

Candidate Kathy Carter can rely on the four NWSL delegates to vote for her Saturday, SI.com reports, which comes out to 4.8 percent of the total vote.

In fact, Carter, the on-leave president of Soccer United Marketing, looks likely to win. Here’s a guide to why that matters.

In case you want to watch the voting action as it unfolds (thrilling!), the process will be streaming Saturday.

At Stars and Stripes FC, they continue their celebration of Black History Month with a feature on the greatest-ever American defender, Eddie Pope (their words, don’t @ me).

The U19 and U18 WNTs are holding concurrent training camps in Florida in the upcoming week, with 48 total players, including one from the Reign Academy.

The Sounders’ recent scrimmage opponents, California United FC, have launched their new logo and are looking to play in a professional league.

World

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino was asked whether English players are the “masters of diving.”

As you probably know, live major sports broadcasts are somewhat of a final frontier in the streaming services/cable TV battle. Things are getting serious now that Silicon Valley is throwing their considerable resources into the mix.

The Saudi government has not been shy about splashing cash for soccer reasons, and now the Saudi Arabian soccer federation has struck an interesting deal with La Liga. Nine top Saudi players have gone on loan in La Liga ahead of the World Cup this summer as part of a marketing and sponsorship deal.

FIFA has unveiled details on dates and host cities for the Women’s World Cup 2019 in France and the 2018 U17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay.