Atlanta - Arthur Morris Blank Sports and Entertainment (AMBSE) announced they have selected their first Chief Soccer Officer (CSO) for Atlanta City FC, who will take the pitch in 2028. Richard Gunney, most recently from Gotham FC, will begin the role on November 1, after finishing the 2026 season with Gotham.
Examining the job description Gunney has posted on his LinkedIn page, his position in Atlanta will involve:
Leading the club’s overall sporting strategy
Defining sporting objectives aligned with organizational ambitions
Overseeing the sporting operation, including recruitment, decision-making and squad planning
Build and lead a global scouting and talent identification network
Strengthen recruitment and player acquisition
Establish player development strategy and pathways
Support talent progression across the club’s soccer structure
Lead the design and management of the Soccer Operations function
Oversee all coaching, recruitment, analytics, performance, medical and academy
Appoint and manage key sporting leadership, including first team and academy staff
Direct player contract negotiations and salary-cap strategy
Ensure effective roster management and regulatory compliance
Partner with ownership, league stakeholders and senior leadership
Drive sporting performance, player welfare and long-term organizational development
That all sounds really great, but we are eager to know more about what this will actually look like in a year. To get a better idea of that, let's go back to the last time he launched a new NWSL club, the San Diego Wave. The Wave are one of the few NWSL teams to make the playoffs in their inaugural season. There have been 8 expansion NWSL teams, if you count the Utah Royals twice. Of those 8 teams, only the Wave and Bay FC reached the playoffs in their first season. The Wave did so by finishing 3rd. They were a defensively strong team, led by NWSL rookie of the year and defensive player of the year Naomi Girma, who was the number one college draft pick. They were able to win tight games with the goal scoring of team captain, gold boot winner, and club-owner Alex Morgan. All of this was the vision of club president and two-time World Cup winning coach Jill Ellis.
This was a generational club launch, the type that requires so many moving parts coming together at the exact right moment. It’s naive to think this sort of lightning in a bottle will occur again. Richard interviewed with to discuss his efforts in that legendary team launch. That entire article is a fantastic read, but the highlights are that he left a very successful Portland Thorns team when Jill Ellis called him directly. He was recruited because of his detailed knowledge of NWSL.
His time in San Diego was short-lived, only one season. He departed the warm and sunny skys of San Diego for Gotham FC. In 2023, he took Gotham from worst to first, overseeing a rebuild that saw an underdog team sneak into the 6th spot of the playoffs only to find their best form and win the NWSL Championship.
Screenshot from Gotham FC.
Gunney’s time working in NWSL has had significant overlap with another Atlanta-based organization, US Soccer. During his time in Portland, he helped steer the development of then 18-year-old Sophia Wilson. In San Diego he did the same with Naomi Girma. In a 2023 interview with , he discusses in depth the work he has done to see the future careers of international players flourish.
In a 2024 interview with the Athletic Commute, he discussed the process that he has implemented for recruitment. During the podcast, he mentions the smaller details that he finds make the most significant difference, like tracking head movements to determine how much information about the game a player is taking in before receiving the ball. He details his holistic approach to identifying a player's mentality by analyzing body shape, not only when receiving the ball, but also how they react to adversity after missing a pass or how they react to an official's call. Gunney identified that in NWSL the most important thing is to build around specialties and adaptability. Due to the unique makeup of the NWSL salary cap, teams need to be intelligent in recruiting players who are most able to fill in the fine margins. This was an excellent listen from a podcast designed to be a short 20-minute motivational lift for when you’re taking your child to soccer practice.
All in all, this seems like a great hire by President of Soccer Maurcio Culebro. Gunney clearly has the resume of someone AMBSE would want to hire. In spending a few hours researching his work credentials, I found myself excited to hear himself and others talk about how his approach to team building works from his vantage point. It was detailed in ways that do not reflect the corporate-sounding success at multiple levels of chatter that we’ve grown numb to from former club executives.
We look forward to seeing what develops as momentum towards kickoff accelerates. While we wait, enjoy this video from his time as Wales National Futsal Team Head Coach.
This article was also published on Atlanta United Fan TV. Please subscribe to their work for great soccer coverage.