Chattanooga Football Club begins its search for a new manager
The Chattanooga Football Club will soon have a changing of the guard.
After helping guide Chattanooga FC as the full-time general manager since November, Sheldon Grizzle announced Tuesday he will hand over the reins of the 11-year club.
Now the search for a new president begins.
“It was always meant to be a short-term engagement as the president of the club,” Grizzle said. “Now that we have a professional league to play in and the ownership campaign is behind us along with a strong front office, it is a good time to make the transition with soccer season soon to come to a close.
“With this shift to professional soccer, I think there are people who can step in and understand the world of pro sports at an even higher level. There are a lot of people who have reached out to us over the years from all over the world who have been interested in working for and being a part of our club. So we will be reaching out to some people in specific and of course have a lot of inbound interest as well.”
Grizzle and the club’s front office stepped up in July 2018 after the organization’s former general manager, Sean McDaniel, left the club and eventually joined rival club the Chattanooga Red Wolves Soccer Club.
In December, the organization signed a three-year deal to continue playing its home games at Finley Stadium and opened shares of the team for the public to buy from Jan. 17-June 1.
More than 3,200 investors raised $872,750 for the club, which announced on Aug. 15 it would make the leap to professional soccer in 2020 and join the National Independent Soccer Association.
“This was the most important year in our club’s history,” Grizzle said. “We could have chosen a number of different paths to go and I feel like we executed extremely well over the past 13 months. We have increased our season ticket holders, dramatically increased our sponsorship revenue and learned how to handle the longest season we have ever played. We have a solid foundation from which to build into our professional existence.”
Grizzle stated that CFC’s purpose will always be to “use soccer as a tool to improve community in and around Chattanooga,” and he hopes the next president can help the club reach an even higher level of creativity and innovation in the growing soccer landscape in America.
“We have to get the right person who really understands our culture and what we are trying to do and why we are trying to do it,” he said. “We need someone who understands entertainment, attractions and sports. We don’t think it necessarily has to be a soccer person. Someone who understands how the professional landscape of sports works can really take this club up another notch.”
As for the job Grizzle performed, his leadership helped bring the club new life.
“Sheldon stood in the gap and performed a service that literally no one else could have at the time,” CFC chairman Tim Kelly said. “He was instrumental in saving the club in a time of crisis.”
Facility development is important to CFC, whose foundation submitted a bid to the city last week to build multi-sport facilities on the land in front of Sculpture Fields. Engaging its supporter-owners is also key, according to Grizzle, along with the team winning a professional championship to provide buzz for the city and the club’s first league title.
In handing over the reins, Grizzle — one of Chattanooga FC’s co-founders — is excited for the future and his new role as a consultant.
“Over the years, the club has been approached by so many ownership groups around the country and world asking for guidance on how we started, how we sustained and how we are making this transition,” said Grizzle, who will remain on the board of directors for CFC as well as for the CFC Foundation and Academy. “So we are going to start a separate consulting arm of the organization. We have helped clubs like Detroit City, Oakland Roots and Asheville City get started. We are really excited to help independent, community-minded ownership groups replicate the Chattanooga FC model in other cities around the country.”