I've sat in your seat.
A leadership partner for club presidents and owners — built from inside the football world, not outside it.
Why Ustruck Sports Group exists
Most consultants arrive with a deck. I arrive with the scars.
For more than a decade, I've worked inside professional clubs — through ownership transitions, coaching changes, league expansions, and the daily complexity of running a football organization. I know what it feels like when a season is slipping, when a transfer window is closing, when the board is asking hard questions and the answers aren't simple.
Ustruck Sports Group exists for the leaders carrying that weight. We're not a strategy firm pretending to understand football. We're former club operators who've made the calls, lived with the consequences, and know what it takes to build something that lasts.
Before the front office
Before the executive work, I played professionally for seven years and won an MLS Cup with the Houston Dynamo. That experience shapes everything I do now. It's why I know what players need to hear from leadership, what coaches feel when a club is misaligned, and why decisions made in boardrooms ripple through locker rooms.
The relationships I built as a player — across MLS, NWSL, and the global game — remain central to how USG operates today.
Pitchside at the 2015 Orlando City SC home opener with majority owner Flávio Augusto da Silva (right) and club president Phil Rawlins (left).
About Erik Ustruck
I'm the founder of Ustruck Sports Group, and I've spent my career on the inside of professional football — first as a player, then as a club executive, and now as a partner to the leaders shaping the future of the game.
My executive career began at Orlando City SC in 2014, one year before the club's MLS debut. Over eight years as Director of Soccer Operations, I oversaw an $18M sporting budget across four business units and helped guide the organization through expansion, a merger, and two acquisitions as it rose to a $500M valuation. I also managed Kaká's transition into and out of the club — his testimonial about our work together appears on the home page. During that period, I served on the MLS Sporting Committee, where I contributed to the working group that designed what became MLS Next Pro — a league launched to give MLS clubs direct control over their second-team development environments, replacing the fragmented USL relationships that preceded it.
In 2018, I took on the General Manager role at an NWSL franchise while continuing in my role at Orlando City. The women's program had been an expansion franchise since 2016 but had operated without a dedicated senior voice at the club level. I stepped into the GM role, led the cultural turnaround that earned the organization regional Top Workplace recognition, secured a 150% increase in the operating budget, and built the first dedicated NWSL training facility of its kind. Marc Skinner — now leading Manchester United Women — was one of my hires during that tenure. I advocated for a dedicated GM successor without dual responsibilities before transitioning back to fully focus on my Orlando City role in 2020.
I returned to the same NWSL franchise in 2022 to lead a full sporting rebuild during a period of executive transition. That work included the decision to recommend elevating the club's interim head coach — Seb Hines — to the permanent role. He was later named NWSL Coach of the Year, and his testimonial about the work appears on the home page. The rebuild set the conditions for the club's later trophy-winning era.
Today I continue as a sporting advisor to another NWSL franchise, and I partner with presidents and owners across MLS, NWSL, and global football on the decisions that shape long-term club value.
How I work
I work only with leadership.
My clients are presidents and owners. The work is sensitive, the conversations are direct, and discretion is non-negotiable.
I prioritize people before frameworks.
Strategy decks don't transform clubs. People do. I focus on the human side of leadership — alignment, trust, culture — because that's where sustained performance actually comes from.
I bring real-world football fluency.
I don't translate from corporate to sport. I speak the language of the club because I've lived it — from academy operations to first-team transitions to ownership-level strategy.
I stay reachable.
The most valuable advisory work happens in the moments that matter — a transfer deadline, a leadership transition, a board conversation. I'm built to be reachable when those moments come.
Let's talk.
If you're carrying the weight of a club through a period of change, transition, or growth — and you'd value a partner who's been inside the walls — I'd welcome the conversation.