Grizzle set to be full-time general manager for CFC

Sheldon Grizzle is going back to his roots.

After helping the Chattanooga Football Club get off the ground back in 2009, Grizzle has decided to drop the interim label and become the soccer club’s full-time general manager, according to multiple sources.

When contacted by the Times Free Press, Grizzle declined comment, but a source said the announcement could be made as early as today.

He had been serving as the interim general manager since the resignation of former CFC GM Sean McDaniel, who now is president and GM of the Chattanooga Red Wolves, a new United Soccer League team that will play in League One.

Grizzle spent the first three seasons of CFC’s existence (2009-11) working with a lot of the day-to-day dealings of the club along with Krue Brock, but he chose to step away in 2012 to pursue a number of different business opportunities.

“Chattanooga FC has been homegrown from day one, and we are committed to keeping it that way,” Grizzle said in a CFC release when he became the interim GM. “In concert with our supporters and community stakeholders, against all odds we have created something truly unique in Chattanooga. Professional and amateur soccer team ownership groups from around the country continue to look at Chattanooga as an inspiration for what can happen when something is created from the ground up.”

Multiple reports have suggested that CFC is one of as many as 12 teams looking to form a “professional” league that would be affiliated with the National Premier Soccer League and called NPSL Pro. The new league would begin play in 2019 with a Founders’ Cup that would run from August — the end of the regular NPSL season — through November, with a full league season with even more teams starting the next season.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.