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 Wednesday, October 13
Former MLS deputy commissioner back in the game
 
Associated Press

 NEW YORK -- Sunil Gulati, fired eight months ago as Major League Soccer's deputy commissioner, returned to the league Tuesday as managing director of Kraft Soccer Properties.

Gulati, 40, will have control of the New England Revolution and San Jose Clash, including player personnel operations, as well future projects the Kraft family might enter.

Gulati, who for the first three years of Major League Soccer's existence was responsible for every player signing by the league, says his first priority will be to hire a replacement for Walter Zenga, who was dismissed as the Revolution's goalkeeper-coach on Oct. 1.

"I think a fundamental decision, since your coach has to be central to your player decisions, has to be on the coach," Gulati said. "After that, we have to be reasonable in determining what players we want and who the league has the resources to get.

"Nobody gets all those decisions right, not at Manchester United, not in MLS. You hope to get two or three right in any season. We have to get three or four right."

Despite both teams having qualified for the playoffs only once each in their four years, Gulati's immediate attention will be on the Revolution because their needs are more immediate.

"It's a different dynamic (with the Clash)," Gulati said. "We'll focus early on the Revolution. The Clash have coach in place, and there are fewer decision variables."

Gulati was a key executive in the organizing committee of the 1994 World Cup and later moved on to become one of the major figures in launching MLS in 1996. Under the league's "single entity" system, in which the league owns all the teams and singularly negotiates and signs all players to contracts but investors pay for the right to operate the clubs, Gulati was responsible for all player acquisitions.

It was his decision to unilaterally exercise the option on Tab Ramos' contract, renewing it without the approval of New York-New Jersey MetroStars' operator-investor Stuart Subotnick, that reportedly caused then-MLS commissioner Doug Logan to fire Gulati on Feb. 23.

Logan was subsequently fired by the MLS Board of Governors, headed by Subotnick, on Aug. 4.

Gulati said he feels his extensive experience within American soccer, his international contacts and his intimate knowledge of MLS' internal machinations give him a unique perspective that should enable him to be successful.

"From where I sat for the last few years, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what parameters the league operates under," Gulati said. "You're not going to find us in a situation where we are going to be in the New England press or the (San Francisco-San Jose) Bay area press saying we didn't get players we wanted.

"Are we going be irritated if we don't get exactly the player we wanted? Sure. But we're going to take responsibility for the decisions we make. Everybody is playing with same constraints."

 


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