Sporting KC
Sporting KC Hire Controversial Sporting Director Gavin Wilkinson
Sporting Kansas City will hold a press conference today for a club announcement which is rumored to be the hiring of Gavin Wilkinson.
Tom Bogert, Pablo Maurer and Paul Tenorio of The Athletic and Daniel Sperry of the Kansas City Star are reporting that Sporting Kansas City will hire former Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns General Manager and President, Gavin Wilkinson. Sporting KC have announced they’ll hold a press conference with Peter Vermes and co-owner Mike Illig at 2:30 Central Time for a “club announcement.” As of this time, they have not confirmed the Wilkinson hire.
Wilkinson served in his roles in Portland since the team joined Major League Soccer in 2011 and the Thorns since they joined the NWSL in 2013. He was fired in 2022 as a result of fallout from Sally Yates’s report into allegations of past abusive behavior and sexual misconduct in women’s professional soccer, as well as other allegations of misconduct in his time as GM and President.
A Questionable Past
The Yates report was an independent investigation into allegations of past abuse and sexual misconduct in women’s professional soccer in the United States.
In the report, Wilkinson is accused of mishandling the dismissal of former Portland Thorns head coach Paul Riley, who is heavily implicated in the report for sexual misconduct and coercion of his players.
Wilkinson was also found to have then recommended Riley to be hired by the Western New York Flash (now the North Carolina Courage). He allegedly said Riley was “put in a bad position” by a player, according to one WNY Flash executive and that he’d hire him as head coach “in a heartbeat.” Riley was fired from the Courage in 2021 when the Yates report was released.
[Update 8:40 PM CST: At the press conference, Wilkinson denied the above quotes and later indicated, “the facts have not necessarily been reported.”]
Wilkinson was also accused of mishandling domestic violence allegations of now former player Andy Polo. The allegations came in 2021 and the team still triggered his contract option after the season. An MLS investigation conducted by Proskauer Rose LLP found it was mishandled out of “incompetence,” and not a desire to cover it up.
Gavin Wilkinson is also accused of several other inappropriate comments and actions towards players that he denies.
On the surface, the optics of the hire of Wilkinson by Sporting Kansas City look very bad.
Sporting Director Search
According to The Athletic, “Sporting KC aimed to add to the club’s front office this offseason.” In addition to interviewing and hiring Wilkinson, they reportedly considered former New York Red Bulls sporting director Dennis Hamlett and current Orlando City technical director Ricardo Moreira.
Previously, Peter Vermes held both the job of Head Coach and Sporting Director. With Wilkinson in that role, it’s one less title for Vermes, but Wilkinson will still report to Vermes.
Gavin Wilkinson built the Portland Timbers teams that won MLS Cup in 2015 after eliminating Sporting KC in the double-post game and were runners up in 2018 and 2021. He built the Portland Thorns teams who won the NWSL Championship in 2013 and 2017.
The KC Soccer Journal will have more from today’s press conference and on this story in the coming hours and days.
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Hiring Gavin Wilkinson is extremely upsetting and beyond disappointing. I’ve said it before, but Sporting has become a shell of the organization I stumbled across 10 years ago and fell hard for. This move makes the club as a whole unrecognizable to me now.
I already had one foot out the door after Sporting’s bizarre handling of last season and seeing how Apple is staying committed to congested match day schedules. But this might have sealed the deal on walking away for me. This is gross.
You can make your own arguments without degrading other people.
Thanks to whoever deleted the unnecessary response(s?) to my comment.
Me too. I’m not sure if I’ll be back this year.
Lots of accusations. Did they ever find anything on this guy? I don’t love how yall went editorial right from the clickbait title.
Seems there’s a ton of smoke but no fire.
Spend more time reading up on this.
Hi Dag,
Wilkinson was fired as a result of what was uncovered in the Yates report into misconduct and his role in it. Questionable is certainly an apt descriptor based on what was uncovered.
Here are the items in the Yates report confirmed about Wilkinson:
1) The Yates report found that Wilkinson recommended Riley to the Flash months after the head coach was fired by Portland for cause after an internal investigation found evidence of his misconduct with players.Wilkinson knew about Riley’s actions and predatory behavior after issues were raised multiple times by players.
2) Wilkinson was also made aware of Paul Riley’s attempts to ignore/ actively go against the decisions of medical staff while at the Thorns, leading to a concern of endangering players. The report found that Wilkinson did not appear to admonish Riley’s interference with medical treatment. He then continued to advocate for Riley’s hire at WNY.
This doesn’t include other testimony and allegations surrounding Wilkinson in the report.
NOW do the apologists believe me that SKC doesn’t give a rat’s ass about fans anymore? That there’s something rotten in management and/or ownership?
In a city where the Current are already giving them major competition by opening a, frankly, far better stadium and doing a lot of things right, this is just unimaginably tone-deaf. It’s like a malicious bot got control of the club and is gleefully finding ways to degrade its relationship with fans.
And setting all that aside (if you can), it’s also a bit bizarre to hire someone in a position both above AND below Peter Vermes. How’s that supposed to work?
Schrodinger’s Sporting Director. I’m with Kat. This might do it. However, not sure the Current are paragons either. The thing with Potter was weird, they seemingly did not communicate with players about trades (Lynn Williams, Alex Loera), the expansion draft put them in a bind, but getting rid of Loera and Del Fava – two young favorites, was rough.
But it DOES look like the food will be good at the stadium.
Yeah, the Current have made missteps too, but that’s why I said “doing a lot of things right”, not “everything”. And I think the point still stands that the Current are providing major competition for SKC at the worst possible time for the latter to be bumbling all over the place.
When NWSL first put a franchise in KC I was really hoping Sporting would be the owner. Then, when the problems hit, I was really hoping Sporting would step in before they moved to Utah. Now maybe we should wish for the Longs to buy SKC…
Upvote for Schrödinger reference…
Excellent write up. I hope that KCSJ will continue to spread the word about this mistake and about the organizing that will be done to protest it.
Mishandling of those allegations is pretty serious when combined with a pattern of allegations/behavior. I do believe in second chances and thorough investigations, but to me, this seems like a pretty entrenched pattern of behavior that outweighs any benefits. I would rather have someone less qualified than contribute to the acceptance of unacceptable behavior. Indeed, if this announcement is true, I would like to know what are the steps taken to avoid future allegations of misconduct and handling of sensitive issues.
Also with others, it pushes me one step away from continuing support of this team.
Well said. Even if the mishandling was purely due to incompetence (as suggested by the independent firm that investigated), if you don’t have the competence to properly handle such serious matters, then hey, maybe you shouldn’t get a second chance in that role.
My wife and I are going to weigh heavily on canceling our season tickets. We will wait for the press video and reevaluate the reports. I’m shocked that this wasn’t vetted. I’m also curious about the Cauldron’s response (that will be ignored).
The press video won’t be anything besides PR spin. The Cauldron will be ignored because that’s what the the FO and ownership do. Besides, the Cauldron doesn’t appear to be the force they once were; I’d love for them to prove me wrong.
I think it’s important to add some distinction to this point. There were 2 investigations. One that was quote unquote independent wink wink run by DLA Piper, a law firm hired by the club explicitly to verify cough refute cough the Yates investigation which was 100% truly independent. The Yates report was verified independently by multiple people directly involved with the situations despite multiple attempts by the club to stonewall Sally Yates and it was incredibly damning. While the DLA Piper report did state that the transgressions were due to incompetence the Yates report very directly finds that there were concerted efforts made by Wilkinson and Paulson to not only cover up the sexual misconduct of the coach and abuse of a player’s wife by a contracted player but to blame the victim of the sexual misconduct and to offer the player who abused his wife a new contract.
There is no reason to believe that Wilkinson is not a piece of trash. The way the club handled it once the Yates report was corroborated should tell you everything you need to know.
I also believe in second chances, but there is a limit. Someone who tells someone not to be gay in public, who says that a woman who was sexually abused put the man who abused her in a bad position, who unflinchingly vouched for the sexual abuser to get another job leading a women’s soccer team by saying he’d hire the guy back in a second, and who rewards a person he knows to have abused his spouse financially shouldn’t get a second chance in that same kind of position.
I agree with all of this. I want to make sure my point is not misconstrued. My point was, even if all of the other bad stuff about him didn’t exist and the poor actions were only due to incompetence, that alone is still more than enough reason he should not get a 2nd chance in my opinion. You can’t be in any position of influence and not be able to handle serious issues with integrity and responsibility. Obviously, this goes well beyond incompetence which makes it exponentially worse.
As well, there needs to be clear recognition and ownership of mistakes and evidence of change and working toward being better in order to earn a second chance. And a second chance doesn’t necessarily mean going right back to a position of big influence, particularly when the first apology doesn’t come until your introductory press conference.
Just went up on website. Weirdly, no mention of the controversy…
Neither does the MLS site…another cover-up. The MLS and Sporting Kansas City treating the fans like sheep who don’t know any better. Guess we’ll see how that will end!
I’ve been hoping for awhile that Vermes would cede some of his responsibilities. Head Coach + Sporting Director might have worked when the MLS was much smaller, but in 2024 it just seems like an unfeasible arrangement. Reminds me a lot of Bill Belichick in the NFL trying to juggle Coach and GM duties, something he did with great success in the past but has gone way downhill the past few years as the league has modernized (of course, losing Brady was a big part of it).
That said: this is the last person I would have picked to take on the Sporting Director role, for all the reasons stated in the article. I am very glad I decided not to renew my season tickets after last year. Very disappointing.
I’ve wanted for Vermes to lose one of his titles for years. With that said, this is not what I had in mind. How can the organization expect this to go down well?
This is what the STMs and fans in general should be upset and writing their reps about. Not about getting seats that aren’t quite as nice.
It can be both. I can’t believe they didn’t expect blowback on this decision; both are examples of a total disregard for the fan base.
So who’s the cancer? Mike Illig? Jake Reid? Peter Vermes? And more importantly, how can we as fans be the chemo? Obviously this Wilkinson hire needs to be reversed but whoever made the decision should be removed as well, no? Between this and the horrendous Arrowhead decision this may be the worst week since the rebrand and someone needs to be held accountable to the extent that we, as people giving this club our time and money, can do so.
I agree to an extent. I think reversing this decision would be adequate with a “mea culpa”, and clear recognition of who didn’t vet this out.
I’m considering canceling my season tickets, or just selling them every match at a mark-up if I can’t cancel.
The arrowhead was frustrating, sporting wasn’t the only club to make such a decision. This is far, far worse than a clear attempt to moneygrab.
Yes, definitely worse than the moneygrab, but it’s also a datapoint in a pattern of questionable actions by the club. To each their own obviously but a reversal of this hire alone isn’t enough for me. I’m not one of the “club has obviously sucked for the last x years” guys either. I’m pretty firmly in the “MLS is designed to ensure that all clubs have ruts and ours have only been mini ruts” and the “everyone goes through silverware droughts in MLS because of those designs” camp and I think Vermes is a good coach and team manager who deserves to keep his job. But the year over year removal of STM benefits, the constant increase in prices, the vanilla-ization of in-stadium experiences, the controversy the club has had with smaller local clubs, the blatant profiteering of youth soccer, the Ronaldo distraction, and now the Miami and Wilkinson decisions are just too much of an escalating pattern of bad management.
Until someone other than the last guy in is let go and these patterns show a clear shift back toward being a wholesome, community driven, results-oriented, supporter’s first club then I’m out.
This may not be the right forum, and other people probably know exactly what you are talking about, but I’m not in KC so I’d love a summary of the STM benefit reductions, in stadium experiences, etc. Just the nickel tour.
To be honest, the quotes that make me the most angry come from Vermes.
He has known the dude for a long time and was looking for someone with MLS experience.
They “consulted” the women in the ownership group… but it was a really fast process. Insane to say for such a high-risk hire. Either way, you know by the org structure this was PV’s call.
This was a “good old boy” hire through and through, and it is a frightening glimpse into their culture.
(We also know that PV doesn’t care what the fans think about the hire.)
Yeah I’m thinking that Vermes basically has Wilkinson in his pocket, so while the illusion is there that he’s “giving up” the sporting director role, it’ll still essentially be Vermes’ show. Add in the probable fact that the final call came down to Vermes, and it puts Wilkinson in a position of owing Vermes, since he wasn’t getting hired anywhere else. It’s just another Vermes yes-man added in to the fold.
I truly had hope that this offseason would be a kind of reset for the organization and the approaches to things like fan engagement, hiring decisions (players and staff alike), and just an overall adjustment to their tone deaf demeanor.
Instead, we get this. Don’t forget the Q and A set up by the very organization that made this hire.
As I said in my other post: I don’t care about the Miami game moving to Arrowhead, and I didn’t see that as a direct slap in the face to STMs for the reasons I stated.
However, what I do care about is that they knew this hire was coming, just like they knew they were going to be moving the game to Arrowhead, yet they created an artificial urgency and pushed season tickets so hard before any announcement so they could get as much money as possible. They absolutely knew both announcements would result is less demand for season tickets. That’s a POS move by any organization, but especially one like Sporting considering what they used to be.
Add on the fact that we’ve made no signings with an aging starting 11 that essentially has no real, where not all are even a starting quality 11, more blank responses from Vermes, and a lack of any indication of what they’re doing to improve the team for this season.
This whole organization and team is feeling more and more soulless and plastic every day closer to the season we get. Nothing is going to change by the beginning of the season either.
I do have to say: shame on the Cauldron for not being more direct. Just like their letter last year, it reads very PR’ish and like they’re just trying to play peacemaker. It doesn’t feel like an organization that is truly for the fans and taking any blatant stands.
I’m not saying to be uncivil, but sometimes you have to be blunt and put it out there.
I think you’ve nailed it: the baseline problem is the collective treatment of fans and direction of franchise. I’ve been more disgusted by the Arrowhead move than some (most?) of you, and I’ve heard some good arguments for why it should happen in the ensuing debate. To partially repeat a post I recently put on that thread (but is now probably not being seen by many),
I posted that moments before I heard about the Wilkinson hire, and that’s the capping move in a long series of middle fingers to fans. It’s like a personal relationship going slowly sour; when something bad happens in a strong relationship, you can work through it; when it happens in a setting that’s already lost trust and love, it blows up faster and heals more slowly. Being surprised about blowback to Arrowhead is sort of like being surprised by a couple arguing over a can of soup in the grocery store; it doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal but it’s the underlying tension that drives antagonism. And to stretch this analogy, Wilkinson is more at the level of finding out your partner is cheating on you.
It just struck me that another cool thing they could have done to help fans feel like Arrowhead was for them, was to offer priority and/or discounts to anyone who’d purchased tickets last year. They’ve squandered so many chances to present themselves as a community/fan-oriented club lately, and the arrogance and disdain of this hire really caps it.
What a disgrace! We didn’t need him! Many women supporting this team are now questioning their loyalty. Frankly, I bought the season tickets that we own and will be considering strongly relinquishing them. @SportingKansasCity – we deserved better!