When it comes to building out the roster, New York City FC’s newly appointed sporting director Todd Dunivant said the club has the resources to make a big splash, but the question of when to do that is a little more complex.
Major League Soccer has seen an influx of big-name talent in recent years, headlined by Lionel Messi signing with Inter Miami in 2023, as well as Son Heung-Min joining LAFC and Thomas Müller going to Vancouver last season. Now, with a new sporting director at the helm in the Big Apple, will NYCFC look to make similar noise?
“Star players come in different forms, and it could be a big name or it could be a big spend on a young talent. There’s different ways to do it,” Dunivant told The Post. “I think we, being part of City Football Group, we know we have a big platform. We know we have resources behind us, but we’re also going to make wise investments.”
Dunivant, who took over as sporting director earlier this month, said that NYCFC acts “autonomously” from City Football Group, the conglomerate that owns the team as well as a number of clubs across the globe, including Premier League side Manchester City.
CFG does set the team’s budget and there are approvals needed on player moves.
When it comes to their roster building for this season, NYCFC are in an interesting position. The club surprised many last season with a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, but it also has to contend with an ACL injury to leading scorer Alonso Martínez, which will sideline him for a significant amount of time, and the departure of Justin Haak in free agency.
“If there’s an opportunity, if we feel like it’s the right player and it’s the right moment, we need to look at that,” Dunivant said. “That could be in [2027], in this window, it might be in the summer. We need to be open to it and we know the holes that we have. We need to make sure that it’s the right moment and not just go spend to go spend. That’s not gonna be our philosophy, I promise you that.
“We need to be able to justify it from a football perspective, first and foremost, but then also from a financial investment standpoint. Both are important and we have to be able to execute on both.”
In the short term, the club’s new soccer exec did indicate that the club was “working pretty hard” to add “reinforcements” to help fill the gap left by Martínez’s injury, while noting that up-and-comer Seymour Reid, who had 13 goals in 15 appearances for the second team last year, could see some time as well.
Dunivant, who previously served as general manager of USL Championship side Sacramento Republic and takes over after David Lee left the sporting director role last October, is keenly aware of the expectations he’s walking into this year.
“New York expects winners,” he said. “I think that’s a big part of the identity of New York City. Our club has shown year after year that type of success, advancing to the conference finals three of the last five years and being a perennial playoff team. That speaks to who we are and the history we’ve established. Being in a big market like New York brings a lot of eyeballs, but that’s opportunity.”
