AMB Sports and Entertainment has brought in a longtime front office executive from Mexico to lead its soccer operations.
Mauricio Culebro, who was most recently the president of Tigres UANL in Liga MX, was named AMB’s president of soccer on Wednesday. Culebro, who will report to Rich McKay, will oversee Atlanta United and the NWSL Atlanta club that will launch in 2028.
“As we progressed through the search process, Mauricio’s impressive experience and clear vision to elevate our clubs made him an outstanding fit to lead Atlanta United and NWSL Atlanta 2028,” Arthur Blank said in a statement. “While he may be new to MLS and the NWSL, Mauricio is not new to building and operating successful global soccer clubs, and I am fully confident in his ability to help return Atlanta United to the level our fans deserve, while leading the launch of our NWSL club.”
Culebro’s experience also includes time with the Mexican Football Federation (FMF), where he was COO for two years and was hands-on with planning for the country to host World Cup matches in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. Before that, he was president of Club América for 15 years.
“It is an honor to join AMBSE’s highly successful leadership team and become part of an organization with such a strong culture and foundation already in place,” Culebro said. “I am excited to put my experience, passion and commitment at the service of Atlanta United and NWSL Atlanta 2028, working alongside a great team to build long term projects our fans can feel proud of — teams that truly represent the passion, energy and ambition of this city.”
Atlanta United CSO/sporting director Chris Henderson, senior VP of strategy Dimitrios Efstathiou, and senior VP/CBO Skate Noftsinger will all report in to Culebro, along with the sporting and business staffs of NWSL Atlanta upon their hiring.
Can someone give me a breakdown of what these roles entail? President? Chief Soccer Officer? VP of Strategy? Chief Business Officer? And all of these people report up to Rich McKay. These sound like a lot of redundant roles.
Is this basically the new Boca, who will have the final say in player personnel decisions, at least as far as who we try to sign?
Technically Henderson is the Boca replacement. Culebro would be the Garth replacement with the idea that Garth was technically originally hired to handle business aspect of the team, not the player personnel aspect, but I guess unless the team mentions that Henderson reports to Culebro, Henderson would have the final say in personnel decisions.
Thanks. Per the article, Henderson will report to Culebro.
Resumé looks good – hopefully he can get the FO back to where it needs to be AND fix the scouting department
#spector-out
Well…..eventually; one of these FO hires has to work out……right?
We just need 7-8 transfer windows and then we’ll be fine