{"id":279421,"date":"2025-10-05T11:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279421\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T11:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:49:12","slug":"sporting-kc-hire-david-lee-as-president-of-soccer-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279421\/","title":{"rendered":"Sporting KC Hire David Lee as President of Soccer Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wait to hire a Chief Soccer Officer (CSO) President of Soccer Operations is over. On Tuesday, Sporting Kansas City announced<\/a> David Lee will fill the role, as well as hold the title of General Manager.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s signed to a seven-year contract through 2032.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the titles throw you off, Lee is over everything soccer, according to the press release.<\/p>\n

\u201cLee will serve as the club\u2019s chief soccer officer and will play an executive leadership role in all areas of Sporting\u2019s soccer enterprise, including first-team roster management, player recruitment, scouting, analytics, technical staff oversight and the continued development of Sporting KC II and the Sporting KC Academy. He will report directly to the club\u2019s ownership group and will oversee Sporting Director Mike Burns and interim head coach Kerry Zavagnin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee joins Sporting KC after spending 11 years with New York City FC<\/a>, most recently as their Sporting Director. He was added to their staff in 2014 as the Director of Player Recruitment, ahead of their debut season in MLS in 2015. Lee was promoted to Technical Director in 2017 and promoted again to Sporting Director in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we enter a new era for Sporting Kansas City, this is the most important decision we could make,\u201d Co-Principal Owner Michael Illig said. \u201cAfter a six-month global search, David was the clear and undeniable choice. He will lead our soccer operation with our full trust and confidence. David brings fresh vision, global experience and relentless ambition. With his leadership, we are committed to building a team that reflects the pride of our community while striving for the highest levels of Major League Soccer. This is the beginning of a new chapter for Sporting Kansas City and one that we believe will carry our club into a future of renewed success and shared pride with our supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYCFC have had 17 Homegrown players in their history, with Lee signing 14 of them.<\/p>\n

His career started overseas in England, where he is from, before coming to work with the New York Red Bulls in 2011. He was a Performance Analyst for their 2013 Supporters\u2019 Shield winning squad. And Lee has quite the track record since taking over the head job at NYCFC. As Tom Bogert pointed out<\/a>, \u201cNYCFC has most points in MLS since Lee took over as CSO in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s background is in analytics, and Mike Illig said when they sought to hire someone, they are a technology company, and they want to leverage that. Lee has a master\u2019s degree in performance analysis of sport from the University of Wales in Cardiff. He also held a role at Exeter City as the Head of Performance Analysis (2009-2011) and Performance Analyst for Hartpury Football Academy\u00a0before coming to the Red Bulls and then NYCFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cSporting Kansas City has a proud history, a passionate fanbase and a winning culture,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI want to thank the ownership group for this special opportunity and look forward to building on the strong foundation that has been established in this great soccer city. I am excited to work with the players, coaches and staff to achieve our shared ambitions, and I look forward to meeting our incredible fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the press release<\/a> from NYCFC, \u201cLee\u2019s last day at New York City FC will be Monday, October 6. New York City FC has begun their search for a new Sporting Director and will update fans as soon as the right candidate has been identified.\u202f\u201d He\u2019s set for his introductory press conference with Kansas City on the 8th.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s time for Lee to get to work. The team has 17 players<\/a> they can make decisions on this offseason. Lee will also have to decide on keeping Sporting Director Mike Burns and hire a full-time coach, as well as staff for both the first and second teams.<\/p>\n

This story has been updated with quotes from the NYCFC press release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wait to hire a Chief Soccer Officer (CSO) President of Soccer Operations is over. On Tuesday, Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-279421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115321409669080317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}