U.S. Soccer, Flush With Cash, Lays Off Dozens

U.S. Soccer’s incredible financial run wasn’t enough to save the jobs of dozens of employees. 

On Tuesday, the federation laid off 30 employees across multiple departments, according to The Athletic, as the organization prepares to move from its headquarters in Chicago to suburban Atlanta. The new headquarters is currently under construction and won’t open until 2026, but U.S. Soccer has turned a local elementary school into a temporary headquarters for the time being. 

As part of the relocation, “the Chicago office will close in 2025, and while not all staff will relocate, we deeply appreciate the invaluable contributions of those who won’t be making the move. Our new Training Center will allow us to operate more efficiently, positioning U.S. Soccer for long-term success in the ever-evolving landscape of global soccer,” U.S. Soccer said in a statement to Front Office Sports.

The layoffs come amid a strong fiscal year for the nonprofit, which is expecting commercial revenues of $110 million in 2024, The Athletic reported, up from $32 million the prior year. U.S. Soccer’s fiscal year ends March 31. The federation employs roughly 340 people, making the 30 cuts equate to about 9% of its workforce. Not all layoffs were immediate. Some have a termination date in April 2025, while others were offered relocation packages to join the company in Fayetteville, Ga. Employees have 60 days to accept the relocation package. Those who don’t will receive 60 days of severance pay. 

For its fiscal year that ended March 2024, total revenues were $188 million, compared with $148 million for the prior year, according to USSF’s latest financial statements.

Last month U.S. Soccer hired new men’s national team manager Mauricio Pochettino with a reported two-year salary of $6 million per year and partially financed by Ken Griffin, CEO and founder of hedge fund Citadel.

Employees told The Athletic they have been anticipating the cuts since August when the federation CEO JT Batson emailed the staff about an upcoming October meeting that would discuss “relocation packages [and] the approach to the timing of relocations.” Staff realized some jobs would survive the relocation and others would not. Their anxiety intensified this week when staff received calendar invites to one-on-one meetings with their supervisors, some of which included human resources representatives. 

One anonymous employee told The Athletic that they knew they’d be “invited” to Atlanta and that some individuals wouldn’t “make the cut, so to speak. This was basically weighing on all of us for over a month already, and then the invite stuff happened—it was very, very hard to deal with,” they said.

A spokesperson for U.S. Soccer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.