One President, Two Clubs, One Uncommon Summer: Atlanta's New Soccer Leadership Speaks for the First Time

Mauricio Culebro spoke to the Atlanta media for the first about his new role with AMBSE overseeing Atlanta United and the new NWSL club. (photo: Sofia Cupertino for the SDH Network)

Mauricio Culebro had been in Atlanta for one week when he sat down in front of reporters Monday afternoon. He had already been to three World Cup matches.

Culebro comes from Tigres in Mexico, and Club América, two of the largest clubs in the Concacaf region. He helped plan the World Cup for Mexico from inside the federation. And his first week in his new city was spent watching it unfold from the seats, experiencing the appetite of Atlanta soccer fans the same way they experienced it themselves.

"I've seen why Atlanta is the epicenter of soccer in the United States," he said. "I experienced firsthand the passion of the fans, how the appetite they have for football, soccer now."

Monday was the first time Culebro, Atlanta United president Josh Blank, and AMBSE CEO Rich McKay all spoke together publicly about what this hire is supposed to mean. The March announcement established Culebro's credentials on paper. What it could not provide was the texture of how this leadership group actually thinks. That part showed up Monday, across three exchanges that speak to the organization's direction.

The first was Madison Crews asking about the single president structure and why it matters. McKay had opened the session explaining the scope of the search: Sportology was hired to assist, 40 candidates were interviewed across 20 leagues, five finalists narrowed to two, nearly four months from start to finish. What the March announcement established less clearly was why the organization chose to place one person over both clubs rather than build separate leadership structures from the start.

On Monday, McKay made it plain.

"Two separate entities," he said. "Unique identities to both. But commonality where two plus two could equal five, not three, and no competition amongst those teams, but collaboration."

McKay and Blank sat alongside Culebro and all spoke about the job at hand, as well as the opportunities ahead. (photo: Sofia Cupertino for the SDH Network)

Blank extended that. Having Culebro oversee both clubs, he said, allows each team its own identity while ensuring they are communicating with each other. "The last thing that we would ever want is for one team to be taking away from the other." He pointed to World Cup activations around the city where the organization has already deployed both Atlanta United and Atlanta NWSL branding as an early illustration of the model working in practice.

The second exchange was the most substantive of the morning. Asked about his experience building the women's programs at Club América and Tigres, Culebro gave an answer that read less like biography and more like a statement of intent.

He described the moment in 2017 when Liga MX Femenil launched and Club América was told to field a women's side. The decision they made at that moment, he said, shaped everything that followed.

"We didn't want the women's team to be a part of the whole team. We wanted to build something with its own identity."

He went on to say that the two programs require genuinely different approaches. "The way you need to build a team is very different." It is well documented what he achieved at both clubs, including four Liga MX Femenil titles at Tigres and his status as the only president in Mexican soccer history to win men's and women's league championships at two separate clubs. Monday was the first time he explained, in his own words, how he thought about building them.

For an NWSL club that does not yet exist except as a promise, a training ground in Marietta, and a 2028 launch date, that framing carries real weight.

It is a new era in Atlanta with Mauricio Culebro as the President of Soccer for AMBSE. (photo: Sofia Cupertino for the SDH Network)

Culebro arrives during a transfer window in MLS and has already walked into the public frustration of key players. He said he had not been aware of Alexey Miranchuk's recent comments about complacency inside the locker room. His response, built around balancing the short, mid, and long term, was measured and careful. The next sixty days will say more than Monday's answers did.

What is not in question is the moment he is standing in.

Blank described the World Cup's potential in terms more candid than most organizational language allows: introducing people who were not previously soccer fans locally, pursuing future events including the Women's World Cup and Copa América. McKay pointed to FanFest numbers that have exceeded every projection, including a new date added for this Thursday, and named the city's infrastructure as the foundation for more. The airport. The hotels. The Georgia World Congress Center. The stadium. The support of the mayor and the governor.

Culebro's job is to make sure all of that energy has somewhere to go once the tournament ends.

"They can be sure that I will put all my effort, my experience, my knowledge, my expertise to bring Atlanta United back where it belongs," he said. "And after that, they can be sure that they will have two teams that they will be proud of."

He has been here one week. He has seen three matches. He knows what this city is capable of.