The U.S. game no one can watch?

MIAMI -- The U.S. could clinch a World Cup berth on Saturday night, and not many American soccer fans will be watching.

That's the absurd situation we find ourselves in thanks to the screwy way that FIFA allows host countries to handle the video broadcast rights for World Cup qualifiers. As a result, the huge U.S.-Honduras game in San Pedro Sula (Saturday, 10 p.m. ET) will only be available in the U.S. on closed-circuit TV at a small number of bars and restaurants.

Keep in mind, we're talking about closed-circuit TV, not pay-per-view. In other words, you will not be able to see this game in your own home.

This is a trip back to the 1980s that nobody wants. The last event I saw on closed-circuit TV was the fight between Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney more than27 years ago.

How did this happen? I called Chuck Blazer, the general secretary of CONCACAF and a member of the FIFA executive committee, to find out. Blazer told me that for years, FIFA has allowed the host countries of World Cup qualifiers to sell the video rights to whomever they wish. Doing so, Blazer told me, allows national soccer federations to make much-needed money to support their operating expenses.

In the case of U.S.-Honduras, the Honduran federation sold the English- and Spanish-language video rights to a media company named Media World. ESPN, the usual broadcaster of U.S. games, was unable to reach a deal to buy the rights from Media World, nor were any other American cable or terrestrial TV outlets.

The result: No matter how much making the game available on television would satisfy U.S. soccer fans, draw the interest of casual fans and help to grow the sport here, Media World didn't feel as if it has an economic interest to do so. If you want to see the game, you'll have to spend $10 to $20 a head to go to one of the establishments showing the game in English (click here to find one) or in Spanish (click here).

Unfortunately, this trend may only be growing. On Saturday, England's World Cup qualifier at Ukraine will be shown for a fee on the Internet and not on any English television. The game doesn't mean much for England, which has already qualified, but you can be certain that important World Cup qualifiers won't be readily available to the public in the future, either.

And that's a problem FIFA needs to address. The sport's international governing body claims that it's for the good of the game, after all, and national-team games are part of the national public interest. This is FIFA's tournament. And just as FIFA can allow its federations to sell broadcast rights for the World Cup qualifiers they host, it also could add new stipulations that would make the games more accessible to the public at large, such as requiring that they be available on home televisions.

But that's not all. As I told Blazer, my cable provider now has a channel owned by the NFL (NFL Red Zone) that allows me to watch live broadcasts of every game in which a team is about to score. Why are NFL games getting more accessible than ever while World Cup qualifiers are getting less accessible? In fact, by asserting more control, FIFA could make more money (that it could pass on to its member associations) by starting its own FIFA TV channel that would provide live cut-ins to World Cup qualifiers as they take place around the globe.