There were less than two months to go until the 1998 World Cup in France when United States men’s head coach Steve Sampson dropped a bombshell that would ultimately blow up their tournament before it had even begun.
John Harkes, the US captain and one of his country’s most experienced players, was mysteriously dropped from the roster weeks before their opening game against Germany, Sampson announced – citing ‘leadership issues’ and a tactical dispute in his reasoning.
That vague explanation failed to defuse any of the resulting uproar and confusion. Harkes was hitherto one of the first names on the team sheet, a veteran player who had already featured at two World Cups and spent close to three years as captain. His sudden demotion made little sense.
And to make matters worse, Sampson’s bizarre move set the wheels in motion for a truly catastrophic World Cup campaign, one which ended at the very first hurdle after three straight defeats in the group stage, including an ignominious upset at the hands of America’s political nemesis Iran.
Yet the scandalous truth behind Harkes’ removal from the team would only come to light 12 years later.
Breaking more than a decade of silence, in 2010 Sampson confirmed that the real reason he axed the DC United midfielder was because he was accused of having an affair with the wife of national teammate Eric Wynalda.
US head coach Steve Sampson (left) dropped a bombshell weeks before the ’98 World Cup
Sampson announced that longtime captain John Harkes (pictured) was no longer on the team
Wynalda, who did go to the World Cup in ’98, had already brought up the topic 24 hours earlier during a discussion on ‘Fox Football Fone-In’ about a similar scandal that was playing out across the pond with England captain John Terry and his national teammate Wayne Bridge.
Amid accusations that Terry had engaged in an affair with Bridge’s ex-girlfriend, Wynalda offered up the revelation that Harkes had an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with his then-wife Amy.
‘I’m calling it an inappropriate relationship. It was a major contributor to why I’m no longer married,’ the father-of-three said, two years after his divorce from Amy.
Sampson then revealed the following day that the alleged affair was why he dropped his captain in ’98. Harkes, who was seven years into his marriage with wife Cindi when he was taken off the World Cup roster, has long denied the accusation.
Despite the devastating impact it had on his personal life, Wynalda said that he still tried to persuade Sampson to keep Harkes on the team.
The coach didn’t recall such a conversation taking place, but said that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
‘At that time, I felt that he was still a player that could help our cause and he was still one of the best 22 players in our country,’ Wynalda explained.
‘I told [Sampson] to keep him. I thought, “If I can handle this, Steve, you’ve got to be able to handle this.” And he said, “No, I’m taking this one to my grave.” And he went all weird on me.’
Over 12 years later, it was revealed Harkes (right) was dropped due to allegations of an ‘inappropriate relationship’ with the wife of US teammate Eric Wynalda (left)
Wynalda (No 11) wanted Sampson to keep Harkes (No 6) on the team despite the allegations
The forward stressed that his national teammate was one of the best players on their roster
Harkes has long denied ever having an affair with Wynalda’s now ex-wife, Amy Ward
Ward pictured with her and Wynalda’s daughter Tatum, who was born six years after the ordeal
Sampson claimed that Roy Wegerle, another US player, had come to him and assistant coach Clive Charles between a February 1998 game against Belgium and a March fixture against Paraguay and said that he had personal knowledge of the affair. Charles died in 2003, seven years before the scandal became public knowledge. Wegerly has never publicly commented on it.
Reacting to Sampson’s decision in ’98, Harkes admitted he had no choice but to ‘respect’ and ‘just go with it’ in the hope that he’d soon be ‘given a chance to get back in there.’
‘If things open up, all I can say is I’m ready to be called on. Hopefully that will work out in the end,’ he added.
That opportunity never presented itself, however, and the rest makes grim history for the USMNT.
After advancing to the second round of a home World Cup in 1994, and thrashing Argentina 3-0 on their way to a credible fourth-place finish at the 1995 Copa America, expectations were high for this talented US roster in France.
Sampson had a number of current and future Premier League names to call upon in goalkeepers Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller, midfielder Claudio Reyna and forward Brian McBride. Midfielder Chad Deering was also playing in Germany’s top flight for Wolfsburg at the time, while defender Frankie Hejduk would go on to do the same with Bayer Leverkusen the following year.
Nevertheless, the man who should have been leading them out in France was the charismatic Harkes – one of the first Americans to make the move overseas for stints with Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, West Ham and Nottingham Forest in England during the 1990s.
But the captain’s alleged antics made it ‘impossible’ to keep him on the roster, Sampson concluded at the time.
There were high hopes for a talented USMNT roster at the World Cup in France that year
‘A lot of [the problems] stemmed from the fact that probably a player that could have helped us quite a bit during the World Cup was John Harkes,’ he conceded in 2010. ‘I think he was an exceptional captain on the field, but it was impossible to keep him on the team based on his behavior off the field.’
Instead, without their influential leader at the helm, a US team with so much promise somehow ranked last in the 32-nation World Cup field after getting shut out 2-0 by Germany, then losing 2-1 to Iran and 1-0 to Yugoslavia.
The defeat to Iran in particular, a game fraught with political tension, proved the nadir of a miserable French summer for Sampson’s team.
They crossed paths in Lyon 19 years after an Islamic Revolution overthrew the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had previously referred to the US as the ‘Great Satan’, and Team Melli earned him the most satisfying of bragging rights by upsetting the Americans 2-1 for its first ever World Cup win and eliminating them in the process.
After losing to Germany in their final group game, Iran was welcomed at Mehrabad International Airport by thousands of fans blowing trumpets and waving flags in jubilation.
Several American players pointed the finger at Sampson and his coaching team over their abysmal showing, with some attributing it directly to the decision to axe Harkes.
‘This whole World Cup was a mess,’ US midfielder Tab Ramos told The Seattle Times. ‘If I had to blame people, I’d blame the coaches.’
But it proved a disaster as they suffered three straight losses and elimination at the group stage
An ignonimous 2-1 defeat at the hands of Iran proved the nadir of a miserable campaign
Iran’s players received a heroes’ welcome back to the country after their historic victory
Wynalda and his American teammates were embarrassed without their leader in Harkes
Alexi Lalas, another member of the ’98 squad, also said about the Harkes scandal in 2010: ‘I think what [Sampson] miscalculated was the ruthlessness, if you will, of athletes in that, I just want to win. And I want to be around people that helped me win.
‘I don’t have to like them. I don’t have to respect them – other than being a good soccer player.’
And despite stressing that the allegations against Harkes left him with little choice, Sampson did have regrets over the handling of the situation.
‘[If I could do it again] I would have included the leadership group on the team in that decision,’ he admitted. ‘I tell myself that now. But I think I trust the fact that they would have come up with the same decision that I would have.
‘Not everyone would have agreed. Certainly Alexi Lalas has gone on the record of saying that it shouldn’t have mattered.’
Sampson resigned as coach on June 29, 1998, and was replaced by Bruce Arena after their sorry tournament.
Wynalda spent another two years with the national team before bowing out in 2000 as his country’s all-time leading scorer (34 goals in 106 appearances), a record that was broken by Landon Donovan eight years later.
After splitting from Amy, he married current wife Amanda in 2014. The couple live in Thousand Oak, California, with their three children and his three children from that previous marriage.
Sampson conceded years later that he should have consulted the team before axing Harkes
After splitting from Amy, he married current wife Amanda in 2014. The couple live in Thousand Oak, California, with their three children and his three children from his previous marriage
Harkes tied the knot with wife Cindi back in 1991 and remains married to her 37 years later
Harkes, meanwhile, helped the US win a bronze medal at the Confederations Cup in 1999 after being brought back into the fold by Arena, before ending his international career in the same year as Wynalda with a total of 90 appearances.
The pair played together just once after the affair scandal, during a January 2000 exhibition at Chile.
‘I am not going to rehash the things that have happened in the past,’ Harkes, who remains married to wife Cindi, said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press in 2010.
‘1998 was devastating to me and my family. It was hard enough not to play in the World Cup, but it was even difficult to go through that time period, the most difficult time period of my life.’
John Harkes and Steve Sampson did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Mail.
