The DC United management announced the hiring Ally Mackay as General Manager and "Chief Soccer Officer" (whatever that is) late this week. DC had been without a GM since Lucy Rushton was fired last fall. (Lucy is now GM of Bay FC, an NWSL expansion team based in San Jose, CA that will start play in the women's league in 2024.)
Mackay is originally from Scotland (the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides). He played for Scot teams Ross County and Partick Thistle. He took the bold step of coming to the USA in 2007 to play college soccer. Mackay got a scholarship provided by First Point USA and played at the University of Evansville in Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Kentucky and close to the Illinois border to the west. He graduated from Evansville in December of 2009. He had hoped to play professionally but due to injury was not able to do so. However, he used his education in business management and the people he had met in his college time to stay in the US as a sports agent. Mackay joined the Stellar Group, a sports agency based in London, and worked mostly as an agent for players.
Mackay was then hired as assistant GM at expansion club Nashville SC in February 2019, a year before Nashville's entry into MLS in 2020. He worked there until being hired by DC United.
Our 2023 acting GM Dave Kasper will now be a "senior advisor" to CEO and owner Jason Levien. Mackay will report directly to Levien and not to Kasper. Assuming that holds, it's a major change.
Welcome Ally!
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