Hosei Kijima, left, Luis Barraza, center, and Christian Benteke of of D.C. United line up for the anthems prior to a game against Toronto FC at BMO Field on May 10.
Getty Images
On Tuesday, D.C. United made the somewhat surprising move of firing sporting director Ally Mackay less than two years after he came into the role.
On one hand, it’s still hard to fault much of D.C.’s problems in the last two seasons on Mackay, who was serving as a club’s top personnel executive for the first time barely had time to shed D.C.’s worst contracts from the previous regime.
On the other, it puts the hiring of new manager Rene Weiler – whose career has been one of quick rebuilds and equally as expedient departures – in a clearer light. Weiler was hired perhaps with the express intent of acting as a stop-gap solution to stabilize the club while it undergoes the business of again rebuilding the technical staff.
Mackay wasn’t given as long a leash as your average MLS personnel boss. And the reality is that D.C. is a 2025 Chicago Fire playoff appearance away from becoming the team in MLS with the longest active playoff drought.
It may be hard to justify maintaining business as usual in those circumstances. But it’s also becoming more difficult to believe problems will be rectified under the current ownership group led by Jason Levien and Stephen Kaplan.
Lack Of Commitment?
Levien deserves credit for steering the process that resulted in the construction of a desperately needed permanent home for the club, Audi Field, which opened in 2018 after more than two decades spent playing at decaying RFK Stadium.
But in the years since, there has been little evidence that the group is willing to spend at the level of even modest perennial MLS contenders.
In payroll terms, D.C. has ranked in the bottom half among MLS teams in all but one season of their playoff drought, with the rank also dropping in each of the previous two seasons Mackay was responsible for.
A glance at net transfer balance initially suggests a rosier picture, with D.C. running a net loss – i.e. buying more than it is selling – in four of the last five seasons. according to Transfermarkt.
But that’s based mostly on a strange level of ineptitude on both sides of the transfer market relative to most MLS peers rather than any big-time aspirations.
D.C. United Salary/Transfer Facts
2025 payroll*: 24th out of 30
2024 payroll*: 17th out of 29
Record incoming transfer^: Christian Benteke, $6.5 million (70th in MLS)
Total incoming transfers of MLS top 100^: 2
Record outgoing transfer^: Kevin Paredes, $7.9 million (37th in MLS)
Total outgoing transfers in MLS top 100^: 1
* Data from MLS Players Union
^ Data from Transfermarkt
The club’s record incoming transfer fee, the approximately $6.5 million paid to acquire Christian Benteke from Crystal Palace, ranks 70th among the highest fees paid by MLS clubs all time, according to Transfermarkt.
Its record outgoing sale – the approximately $7.9 million recouped from Wolfsburg for Kevin Paredes – ranks 37th overall and is D.C.’s only sale in the league’s top 100.
Maybe that data suggests incompetency in the sporting director role. It almost certainly suggests a lack of trust from ownership to make the kinds of bigger ticket moves most higher level MLS teams are finding necessary to contend.
A Valuable Asset
Most frustratingly for fans, this apparent unwillingness to spend across two different sporting directors comes despite Forbes appraising the club as the eighth most valuable in MLS and 30th-most valuable worldwide. Meanwhile, the team had an annual revenue of +$10 million in 2025 by those same numbers, tied for the third-highest net number in MLS per Forbes data.
That suggests D.C.’s relatively modest spending is a matter of choice rather than the necessity that it was it was during much of the club’s latter tenure at RFK.
If there’s a positive to it for fans, it may also suggest that Levien and Kaplan view the club mainly as a financial commodity that could be sold for the right price. They ended their equally ineffective stewardship of Swansea City at the end of last year. And on the same day Mackay’s departure was made official, Ted Leonsis expressed interest on the record (again) in buying the club. Leonsis already owns the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.
In the interim, Weiler is just four games into his role as D.C.’s newest full-time manager. Of his eight previous full-time head coaching jobs, the longest lasted a bit over three full years.
According to longtime area soccer reporter Steven Goff, Erkut Sogut is the most likely person to take over the sporting director role, having worked previously as a sports attorney, agent and executive recruiter but never a club.
Neither of those moves suggest the potential for a long-term change to D.C.’s fortunes in the way a change of ownership might, even if they bring respectability in the interim.