Katie Schroeck / NC Braveness Communications
Curt Johnson has resigned as chief soccer officer of the North Carolina Braveness, the membership introduced on Wednesday. The membership mentioned it would instantly start a seek for Johnson’s substitute.
Johnson spent 14 years with the North Carolina Soccer Membership, working straight with the Braveness because the franchise’s relocation from Western New York in January 2017. Johnson oversaw the technical workers and participant transactions in his function. He was a part of the Braveness’s three NWSL Shields and two NWSL Championships.
“We’re extremely grateful for Curt’s 14 years with the North Carolina Soccer Membership,” Steve Malik, majority proprietor of the Braveness and males’s professional aspect NCFC, mentioned in an announcement. “His experience and imaginative and prescient have been important to our sustained on-field success, and he’ll go away a legacy with the stable basis that the Braveness laid beneath his tutelage. His tireless effort and dedication have paved the way in which for a brilliant future, and he’ll perpetually be intertwined with the historical past of our membership.”
Malik will work with senior VP and assistant GM Bobby Hammond to supervise operations in an interim capability. Hammond has lengthy labored carefully with Johnson on participant transactions.
The Braveness are the fifth NWSL group actively searching for a normal supervisor or equal technical chief.
North Carolina finds itself in a wider second of transition as a membership. Malik was in unique negotiations to promote the group to Avenue Sports activities Group, led by former Milwaukee Bucks proprietor Marc Lasry, however these talks not too long ago fell by way of.
North Carolina is the one group among the many 14 lively NWSL franchises to haven’t modified majority possession or governance previously 4 years. Malik has been the bulk proprietor of the Braveness since buying the franchise rights from the Western New York Flash.
Johnson departs a membership he’s linked to at each stage, from youth to skilled, males’s and ladies’s.
He grew up enjoying youth soccer for the Capital Space Soccer Membership, which grew to become North Carolina FC’s youth membership. He went on to captain NC State College’s males’s soccer group simply minutes down the street from the Braveness’s house at WakeMed Soccer Park earlier than enjoying professionally.
Johnson grew to become president of the Carolina RailHawks, because the membership’s males’s group was beforehand identified, in 2011. He labored on NCFC and the Braveness in a twin function from 2017 by way of 2023, when he shifted solely to Braveness duties.
“As I replicate on my almost 50-year involvement in soccer right here within the Triangle, I’m so pleased with all we’ve achieved collectively,” Johnson mentioned in an announcement. “Soccer was unknown to most once I began enjoying and the soccer neighborhood has poured their blood, sweat, and tears into rising the sport. I’m proud to have performed an element in constructing a youth-to-pro membership that everybody within the Triangle and the state of North Carolina may be pleased with.”
The Braveness additionally gained two NWSL Problem Cups and the inaugural Ladies’s Worldwide Champions Cup (ICC) in 2018 – defeating European champions Lyon – throughout his tenure.
Per the membership, “Johnson and Malik collaborated on the timing of the resignation to reduce the disruption to the group.”
