August 7, 2012
MORE ON HIS PLATE
Soler will juggle Red Bulls' business, sporting sides after Heck's departure

Erik Soler will run the business and sporting side of the Red Bulls' operations -- for now. Linda Cuttone/Sports Vue Images

By Kristian R. Dyer
BigAppleSoccer.com Editor

HARRISON, N.J. – As first reported by BigAppleSoccer.com last Wednesday night, the Red Bulls cut ties with Chris Heck, who had been with the club a year as president, business operations.

A league source said Wednesday night that the club was going through a “shake-up” and would be ending its relationship with the former NBA executive.

But now what? The club has yet to name a replacement and multiple league and team sources are telling BigAppleSoccer.com that no replacement has been made yet and the work done by Heck on the operations and business side will fall to department heads and individuals who report directly to sporting director and general manager Erik Soler.

As of now, Soler will be juggling both the business and sporting side of the organization.

“Chris has been reporting to me, so everything that goes wrong or right in this company is my responsibility. Especially if things go wrong, that’s the name of the game,” Soler said.

“We’ll divide things a little bit more on the business side. I don’t have a chance to be more [hands on with] operations, because the sporting side is tough enough. But we’re organized well; we’ll have five or six people working together.”

Soler would not comment on if Heck left the organization on his own accord or was shown the door by Red Bulls management.

There is no timetable for a decision on replacing Heck and BigAppleSoccer.com has learned that there won’t be an announcement made this season. Soler said he will sit down and discuss the position with Gérard Houllier, the global sports director of Red Bull.

“I want to have time to discuss with him, and see what he thinks,” Soler said.

“We’ll run it with the people we have, we have a bunch of good people. We’ll run it with those people for the next month. Maybe the next year. We’ll evaluate and see and make some choice[s].”