Richard Gunney Built Championship Teams. Now He'll Shape Atlanta City FC's Soccer Future.
Atlanta City FC's new Chief Soccer Officer brings a decade of NWSL experience, a championship-winning recruitment background, and firsthand knowledge of building an expansion club ahead of its 2028 debut.
Before Atlanta City FC signs its first player or hires its first head coach, Richard Gunney has a soccer organization to build.
Atlanta City FC announced Monday that Gunney has been named Chief Soccer Officer, bringing a decade of NWSL experience and a career that has taken him from youth development and coaching to leading recruitment for one of the league's most successful clubs. He will begin his new role November 1, reporting directly to Mauricio Culebro, AMB Sports and Entertainment's President of Soccer.
Most recently, Gunney has served as director of scouting and recruitment at Gotham FC, where he helped build the systems behind a club that won NWSL championships in 2023 and 2025, the inaugural Concacaf W Champions Cup in 2025, and the NWSL Challenge Cup in 2026.
His experience also includes five seasons on the coaching staff at Portland Thorns, helping launch San Diego Wave as an expansion club in 2022, and more than two decades working in coaching and player development.
That combination is particularly relevant to the job awaiting him in Atlanta. Gunney won't simply be asked to find talented players. He will help establish the soccer philosophy, recruitment operation, performance standards, and long-term sporting strategy for a club preparing to enter the NWSL in 2028.
"As we began the search for a Chief Soccer Officer, we set out to identify a leader with significant experience and a proven track record of success in the women's game," Culebro said in the club's announcement. "With a decade of experience in the NWSL across coaching, scouting, player recruitment and development, Richard is uniquely qualified to take on this role and develop a championship-caliber club for Atlanta."
Gunney's record establishes what he has accomplished. His previous comments about building successful soccer teams offer a clearer understanding of how he approaches the work.
The Work Behind Gotham's Championships
In March, Melanie Anzidei and Megan Feringa of *The Athletic* examined how Gotham FC constructed a roster capable of winning two NWSL championships in three seasons. Gunney offered a revealing explanation of what successful roster construction looks like away from the field.
He argued that while matchdays should be glamorous and exciting, the work behind the scenes should be "as boring, as consistent, as predictable as possible."
It's an interesting way to describe the work behind winning championships, especially in a sport where individual signings attract enormous attention and the pursuit of the next major acquisition can sometimes overshadow the importance of building a complete squad.
Gunney's point was about creating consistency in the decisions that make success sustainable. He emphasized the need for alignment in recruitment and spending, particularly within the NWSL's salary-cap structure.
At Gotham, he worked alongside general manager Yael Averbuch West and head coach Juan Carlos Amorós in an organization that developed a comprehensive approach to identifying, evaluating, and acquiring players.
According to Gotham's official biography of Gunney, the scouting operation under his leadership combined live scouting, video analysis, data-informed evaluation, and international player tracking. The process also included long-term roster planning and succession planning, anticipating future needs rather than simply reacting when a player departed or a position needed strengthening.
The range of players Gotham recruited during Gunney's tenure illustrates the reach of that operation. The club attracted established U.S. internationals such as Rose Lavelle, Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett, brought in experienced international players including Spain's Esther González, England's Jess Carter and Brazil's Gabi Portilho, and invested in emerging talent from the American college system.
Among those younger acquisitions was a player familiar to Georgia soccer followers.
In January, Gotham signed Milton native Jordynn Dudley following a decorated career at Florida State that included two national championships, three All-American selections, and 30 goals and 29 assists in just 53 matches. The forward quickly established herself as one of the NWSL's most promising rookies, recording five goals and three assists in 26 appearances across all competitions before a foot injury ended her debut season in October.
Gotham also signed Andrea Kitahata from Stanford, while its earlier recruitment of Lilly Reale from UCLA produced the 2025 NWSL Rookie of the Year. Those acquisitions demonstrated an ability to identify younger players capable of contributing immediately while also offering longer-term potential.
One particularly revealing example of Gunney's commitment to that process came immediately after Gotham's 2025 championship. As detailed by *The Athletic*, while the organization celebrated its title in New York, Gunney was in California scouting an NCAA Tournament match between Stanford and BYU.
Gotham had been evaluating Stanford's Jasmine Aikey, who eventually signed with expansion club Denver Summit. During that scouting work, Gunney also identified Kitahata, who subsequently signed with Gotham.
The work continued even while the club celebrated another championship.
In Atlanta, Gunney will be building a recruitment operation without an existing first-team roster. That creates different challenges, but it also offers the opportunity to establish processes and priorities from the beginning.
His experience at Gotham suggests a philosophy based on defining what the team needs, identifying players who fit those requirements, and building an operation capable of making those decisions consistently.
For an expansion club, that approach could be as important as any individual signing.
He Has Built an Expansion Team Before
Atlanta won't be Gunney's first experience with the uncertainty and opportunity of building an NWSL club from scratch.
After spending five seasons as an assistant coach with Portland Thorns, Gunney joined Casey Stoney's staff at San Diego Wave ahead of the club's inaugural 2022 season.
In a March 2022 interview with George Rees-Julian of Her Football Hub, Gunney described the appeal of helping create a new organization. San Diego had gone from having no players to assembling a 26-player squad, with the coaching staff helping establish both the roster and the environment in which it would develop.
San Diego built that roster by combining established international talent with younger players who could help establish the club's future.
Alex Morgan, Kailen Sheridan and Sofia Jakobsson brought significant international experience. Naomi Girma, selected first overall in the 2022 NWSL Draft, represented an investment in an emerging player who could become a cornerstone of the organization.
Gunney's comments at the time offered insight into how San Diego approached those decisions.
"We tried to build a profile of players that we wanted to sign," he told Her Football Hub.
He explained that the staff spoke with college prospects and their coaches to determine whether they fit those profiles, emphasizing that consistently adding talented players and strong individuals could create long-term value for the club.
That philosophy sounds familiar when compared with his subsequent work at Gotham. Before determining which players to pursue, establish what the organization needs and what qualities will help it succeed.
San Diego quickly demonstrated what was possible. The Wave finished third in the NWSL standings and reached the playoff semifinals in their inaugural season, establishing themselves as immediate competitors.
Gunney had experienced the challenge of building a squad from nothing and finding success without the benefit of years of continuity.
Now Atlanta City FC will ask him to apply those lessons from a more senior leadership position.
The Soccer Philosophy Behind the Recruitment
Gunney's background as a coach and player-development specialist adds another dimension to his recruitment experience.
Before coming to the NWSL, the Cardiff, Wales native spent five years as technical director at Fulham's Girls Centre of Excellence and worked with the Football Association of Wales for six years, including serving as head coach of the men's national futsal team.
He also holds a UEFA A coaching license and has experience developing technical programs and working with players at different stages of their careers.
At Portland, he worked under Mark Parsons during a successful period that included the 2017 NWSL Championship and the 2021 NWSL Shield. His responsibilities included supporting the development of an attacking style of play, experience that would inform his subsequent work in San Diego.
In his 2022 interview with Her Football Hub, Gunney described the coaching environment Stoney wanted to create with the Wave as "a very decision-making environment."
Players needed opportunities to solve problems during training while feeling comfortable expressing themselves. The objective was to help them develop their understanding of the game rather than simply execute predetermined instructions.
Gunney also spoke about the importance of continuing to develop players regardless of their experience or where they were in their careers.
His observations of international soccer offer additional clues about the characteristics he values. In a 2018 interview with *SheKicks* ahead of the SheBelieves Cup, Gunney praised Germany's aggressive pressing and the speed of its play in possession during a victory over France.
Those comments were an assessment of another team's performance, not necessarily a declaration of the style he would choose for his own side. But they demonstrate an appreciation for intensity without the ball and purposeful play when attacking.
Taken together, his coaching experience and recruitment background suggest an emphasis on intelligent decision-making, technical quality, player development, and identifying the right individuals for a clearly defined playing model.
Atlanta City FC's specific tactical identity has yet to be established. Gunney's history, however, offers some indication of the principles that could inform it.
Turning Atlanta's Ambitions Into a Team
Atlanta City FC has already expressed what it wants supporters to experience when the team begins play in 2028.
In a May roundtable with local media, including Soccer Down Here, Josh Blank discussed the desire to build an attacking, entertaining team that allows players to express themselves. As SDH reported following that roundtable, Blank referenced the early philosophy at Atlanta United, when former club president Darren Eales spoke about preferring an exciting 4-3 match to a more conservative 1-0 result.
Arthur Blank has also established the competitive expectations, declaring the organization's intention to challenge for championships beginning with the inaugural season.
Gunney now has the responsibility of helping turn those ambitions into a soccer operation.
His arrival establishes a leadership structure similar to the one already in place at Atlanta United. As SDH detailed in its reporting on Mauricio Culebro's appointment, Culebro oversees soccer across both AMBSE clubs, with Chris Henderson leading Atlanta United's sporting operation and Gunney taking on a comparable leadership responsibility for Atlanta City FC.
There may be philosophical common ground between Gunney and Culebro as well. During his time leading Tigres in Mexico, Culebro emphasized disciplined recruitment, identifying players who fit specific needs, and making decisions with long-term competitiveness in mind.
Those ideas bear a resemblance to the consistent, structured recruitment philosophy Gunney helped implement at Gotham.
Culebro has also been clear that the two clubs need their own identities. In his first Atlanta press conference in June, he discussed the importance of establishing a distinct identity for the women's programs he previously helped oversee at Club América and Tigres, rather than treating them simply as extensions of the men's teams.
For Atlanta City FC, the next challenge is defining exactly how the club wants to play and establishing the personnel necessary to execute that vision.
The appointment of the inaugural head coach will be particularly significant. A club committed to playing attacking soccer must identify a coach capable of implementing that philosophy, then recruit players with the technical, tactical, and physical characteristics needed to make it successful.
Gunney's experience in both coaching and recruitment could be valuable in connecting those decisions.
The NWSL he enters with Atlanta in 2028 will also be more competitive and more financially demanding than the league he joined with Portland nearly a decade earlier. Clubs are investing in international recruitment, training facilities, player development, and sophisticated scouting operations. Creating a talented roster will be challenging. Sustaining success within the league's financial framework will require careful planning.
That's where Gunney's most recent experience at Gotham could become especially important.
Atlanta has already invested heavily in the infrastructure around the club, including its training facility in Marietta. The organization has established its brand, its business leadership, and its ambitions for competing in the NWSL.
Gunney's work will help determine what happens on the field.
"As an expansion club, we have a unique chance to establish a lasting identity, high-performance culture and clear soccer philosophy from day one," Gunney said in Monday's announcement. "Our goal will be to create a team that reflects Atlanta's pride, passion and ambition on and off the field."
There is still much to learn about how he intends to approach the job, from the specifics of his playing philosophy to the structure of Atlanta's scouting operation and the process of hiring the club's first head coach.
But his career already provides a useful introduction.
He has helped develop young players, coached within championship-winning teams, contributed to building an expansion roster, and led recruitment for one of the NWSL's most successful organizations.
Now he has the opportunity to bring those experiences together, establishing the soccer foundation for a club that has yet to play its first match.
The exciting soccer Atlanta City FC wants to put on the field in 2028 will depend on the decisions made long before that first whistle.
For Richard Gunney, that work begins November 1.
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