Mark Warburton was announced as director of soccer for Sporting Club Jacksonville on Thursday, March 20, 2025. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on March 20, 2025 at 5:48 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Sporting Jax has found the person who will instill the technical ethos that it hopes will be evident from its youth teams to the highest level of the American soccer pyramid.
Mark Warburton was announced as the club’s director of soccer on Thursday.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The Englishman will be tasked with hiring a head coach for the men’s team as well as creating an on-field culture for the club that has relationships with more than 10,000 youth players in the region, a pre-professional club as well as two professional teams.
The men’s team is slated to kick off in the United Soccer League Championship in 2026. The women’s team will play its first match this August in the USL Super League.
“I’ve been blown away by how big a soccer (community) North Florida is,” says Sporting Jax lead owner Ricky Caplan. “There are thousands of kids playing. … Soccer is a challenger that is rising quickly. And, I think, Jacksonville is ready for that challenge.”
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
This week, the Tampa-based United Soccer League announced it will create a promotion-relegation system for its three-tiered men’s leagues, similar to what is seen in soccer leagues around the world.
That means if Sporting Jax wins it would be promoted and remain at the highest level of the USL. If it doesn’t, the team would be relegated to either the second or third tier of the USL.
Warburton says Sporting Jax is an opportunity to bind together his experience as a player, academy director, technical director and first-team manager.
“For me, there are certain distinct traits in terms of speed of ball movement; intensity of our play; knowing our job with and without the ball; the chance creation,” Warburton says. “All of these traits are very important. The fans have to enjoy watching the team play. You do that with a style of play they can embrace, understand and, hopefully, bring success.”
Sporting Jax will be Warburton’s first soccer job in the United States.
Most of his soccer career has been spent in England and Scotland. The 62-year-old was an academy director for Brentford F.C. when the London-based club was in its ascent from the third tier of the English soccer pyramid. Warburton was on the technical staff for West Ham United when the London-side won the UEFA Conference League — a third-tier continental trophy — in 2023.
Warburton managed Scottish club Rangers F.C. when the Glasgow-based club was promoted to the Scottish Premier League in 2016.
Managing a club that has expectations for success from the ground up, as was the case for Warburton at Rangers, appealed to Sporting Jax executives.
Soccer enthusiasm
Livingstone put aside their Old Firm differences because he believes Warburton is the person who can help Sporting Jax take flight in the American soccer landscape.
“Jacksonville is an American football town. But, its also a soccer town,” Livingstone says, citing club research that found more than 300,000 soccer enthusiasts in the region. “This is a huge market for soccer. And, right now, it’s not being delivered high-level professional soccer. We, obviously, want to change that.”
Jacksonville is the fourth-largest media market in the country without a professional soccer presence. Cleveland is the only other large media market in the country that does not have immediate plans for a men’s or women’s professional club.
Meanwhile, Milwaukee is slated to enter the USL next year. Finally, Baltimore is an hour’s drive from men’s and women’s professional teams in Washington, D.C.
The challenge for Jacksonville has been a stadium solution.
Since Sporting Jax was founded in 2022 its leadership has touted the desire to build a 15,000-seat stadium in the region. While sites in northwest St. Johns County, as well as Arlington, near Regency Square Mall, have been rumored, the club is not ready to make an announcement.
Livingstone stated he expects Sporting Jax to play in its soccer-specific stadium in 2027.
“We’ve said from the start that we want to bring the highest level of professional soccer to Jacksonville. I think that’s evidence of that,” Livingstone says. “Getting someone of Mark’s caliber to come in and lead the charge is evidence. That will transfer through our coaching staff. It will transfer through our players.
“I think people are going to be excited about the players we are going to bring in here and the level of soccer we are going to play in the market, both on the women’s and men’s side.”
