Report: Atlanta leading candidate to serve as new U.S. Soccer headquarters

The U.S. Soccer Federation may have a new home in the near future, and that new home may be in the ATL. According to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Doug Roberson, Atlanta is the leading candidate to be the future home of U.S. Soccer’s headquarters and official training center.

The decision, according to Roberson, is to be made by the end of the year. Cary, North Carolina was the other city that was seriously considered by the Federation as a future home. The new home of U.S. Soccer would include not just the headquarters, but also a training center with at least 14 fields to house all of U.S. Soccer’s men’s, women’s, youth, and extended national teams.

U.S. Soccer recently left Soccer House, their old headquarters, for offices in downtown Chicago. It was then the board of directors started to consider the future of U.S. Soccer and how to house all of its national teams and offices under one umbrella in a single city. The recent move to require all U.S. Soccer employees, including coaches, to reside in Chicago has been met with consistent resistance, at least from the outside looking in.

While Atlanta is the home of one Atlanta United, who draws the highest average attendance in Major League Soccer, it has not been a city that has seen either of the senior national teams often. The USMNT have only played there twice, the last one coming in 2015. The USWNT last played there in 2016. Atlanta is serving as a host city for the 2026 World Cup, and the new U.S. Soccer headquarters might serve as a legacy build from hosting this tournament.