Toronto FC president Bill Manning parting ways with MLSE

Bill Manning, who has served as president of Toronto FC of the MLS and the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL, has mutually agreed to part ways with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the teams’ parent company.

Manning — who previously held roles with the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Houston Rockets, Philadelphia Eagles and Real Salt Lake — was named president of Toronto FC in 2015 and led the team to the MLS Cup in 2017. He was named president of the Argonauts in 2018 after MLSE acquired the team.

Given the fact that Toronto FC has spent as much as any other MLS club over recent seasons but has not made the playoffs since the 2020 season, change at the top of Toronto FC felt overdue.

Yes, Jason Hernandez has been the club’s general manager since June 2023. But it was Manning, after all, who engineered some of the club’s highest-profile signings including Lorenzo Insigne.

Despite Insigne having the second-highest guaranteed compensation in MLS this season ($ 15.4 million, only behind Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi), the Italian forward, who Manning went to great lengths to recruit, has not delivered the kind of production or culture-driving success expected for someone of his stature and salary.

Manning also drove the club to hire recent head coaches John Herdman and Bob Bradley. Neither coach has delivered the kind of success Toronto FC has had previously. In fact, Manning has hired four coaches in his tenure. It’s rare in any well-oiled organization for a decision-maker to be able to make that many changes without being held accountable for a lack of results on the field.

As The Athletic has previously reported, even with Hernandez’s hire, Manning has long played more of a role in the club’s sporting direction than many other presidents of MLS clubs. And so the club’s lack of success on the field can be tied, at least in some part, to Manning.

Toronto FC has never felt like the same club that strived for excellence since the departures of former general manager Tim Bezbatchenko in 2019 and former head coach Greg Vanney in 2020. After these integral figures left the club, a lack of on-field success soon followed. Yet Manning remained, which has caused Toronto FC’s vocal fanbase (the club still enjoys healthy attendance numbers) to grow more and more frustrated with Manning staying in his position.

After going to three MLS Cups in four years between 2016 and 2019, Toronto FC has since drifted into irrelevance both in MLS and in Toronto’s crowded sports landscape. That cannot have sat well with new MLSE President Keith Pelley. Pelley has a reputation for not being afraid to make changes and by moving on from Manning, Pelley has made his most notable change within MLS since being hired in January 2024.

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(Photo: Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images)