Sporting KC hires former Portland Timbers exec who was named in Sally Yates report

Sporting Kansas City has made its first acquisition of 2024.

And it’s not an acquisition many were expecting.

Sporting KC announced Thursday that it has hired former Portland Timbers and Thorns executive Gavin Wilkinson as its new sporting director — a role long held by manager Peter Vermes. With the hire of Wilkinson, Vermes will remain manager but take on a new, additional role: that of chief soccer officer, or CSO.

The Athletic first broke the news of Wilkinson’s hire on Thursday morning. It was announced publicly by the team later in the day, during a news conference attended by Vermes, Wilkinson and Sporting KC co-owner Mike Illig.

Illig said the search for an additional front-office executive to lighten the load on Vermes and director of player personnel Brian Bliss began shortly after Sporting KC’s season-ending loss at the Houston Dynamo. Bliss noted that the club’s front-office structure had remained virtually unchanged since the departures of Mike Jacobs in 2017 and Meghan Cameron in 2021.

Vermes said the hire of Wilkinson will enable him to “focus on the team and soccer. ... I’m actually really excited to get a little bit of my life back.”

On the field, Wilkinson — GM and CSO for the Timbers and Thorns from 2009-22 — helped build the Timbers into one of the best teams in MLS. They made seven playoff appearances in 11 seasons, reached the championship match three times and won the MLS Cup in 2015. The Thorns, meanwhile, won NWSL championships in 2013 and 2017 and claimed the NWSL Shield in 2016 and 2021.

But Wilkinson’s hire in Kansas City has raised some eyebrows. He became embroiled in controversy at the end of his tenure in Portland and was fired after multiple investigations into the organization’s handling of alleged misconduct by players and coaches.

The Sally Yates investigation, commissioned by U.S. Soccer, focused on misconduct around the Thorns’ ouster of coach Paul Riley for cause in 2015. The report found Wilkinson blamed player Mana Shim, an alleged victim of Riley’s sexual abuse, “for putting Riley in a bad position,” and told another NWSL club that he would “hire him in a heartbeat.”

The Western New York Flash (now North Carolina Courage) hired Riley the following season, and he remained in that position until a 2021 report by The Athletic uncovered multiple allegations from his time in Portland. Riley has denied those allegations.

Upon being introduced to reporters and other media Thursday afternoon, Wilkinson opened with a statement and apology “for the unintended consequences, and to the individuals who were impacted.”

“I should have done more in my previous role to protect and empower female athletes and not hide behind legal advice,” Wilkinson said. “I should have been able to stand on my own two feet, question the process, find out more information, and make a more informed decision. I should have spoken up to prevent the hiring of the coach involved.”

Illig, too, read from a statement Thursday. He said Sporting KC consulted with Nolan Partners, a sports-executive recruiting firm, to “assist in a global executive search” that unearthed 14 candidates, including Wilkinson.

Illig said the Sporting KC ownership group took Wilkinson’s inclusion in the Yates report seriously and reviewed both public and private accounts of what had transpired in his past.

“We have concluded that in Portland, there were acknowledged lapses in judgment and that certain aspects of the situation should have been handled much differently,” Illig said. ”We also concluded that, ultimately, Gavin is a strong, principled individual worthy of a second chance.”

Wilkinson called the allegations detailed in The Athletic’s reporting “hearsay.”

“That did not happen,” he said. “I did not recommend Paul Riley, but I did not tell them not to hire him, and that’s where I’m saying I should have done more at that moment.”

When the initial story broke in 2021, Wilkinson claimed “there was a lot of new information that was never known prior. And that’s why I mentioned that I should have done a deeper dive. I should have found out more, should have asked more questions.”

Wilkinson said he “reached out to a player I owe an apology to. And that is simply, at that stage, I did not do enough. And in reflection, it’s easy to see that.”

Wilkinson was also part of an investigation initiated by Major League Soccer into the Timbers’ failure to report domestic violence allegations against former player Andy Polo in 2021.

That independent MLS investigation, carried out by Proskauer Rose LLP, found that the Timbers failed to report the allegation due to incompetence, not an attempted cover-up. The Timbers, according to the investigation, knew of the incident months before offering Polo a contract extension in December 2021; the league fined the Timbers $25,000.

Controversy aside, Wilkinson helped bring some of the league’s biggest stars to Portland, including Argentine playmakers Diego Valeri and Sebastian Blanco. On Thursday, he underscored his belief that Sporting KC already has a competitive roster — one that he’s looking forward to working with and, where appropriate, enhancing.

“Normally, when this role is hired, it’s because the club is broken, or it’s because they’re changing roles or looking to fix a problem,” Wilkinson said. “That is definitely not the case here.”

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.