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Sources: Roxburgh leaving Red Bulls at end of season

Andy Roxburgh 13

By FRANCO PANIZO

No matter how this season ends for the New York Red Bulls, Andy Roxburgh is on his way out.

Roxburgh, the Red Bulls’ sporting director, will leave the club at the end of the current campaign, sources have confirmed to SBI. It is not clear if the 71-year-old Scotsman is being relieved of his duties or choosing to leave on his own.

Roxburgh has been at the club for approximately two years. He was appointed sporting director by the Red Bulls in November 2012, and helped build the roster that won the franchise its first significant piece of silverware via the Supporters’ Shield in 2013.

This season, Roxburgh has been criticized at times for not making good offseason acquisitions. The Red Bulls chose to keep around a chunk of last year’s roster, citing continuity as a key factor for their vision in 2013. The club added veterans in Bobby Convey, Richard Eckersley and Armando, none of which has provided a significant impact.

Youngsters Ambroise Oyongo and Chris Duvall were signed and drafted, respectively, this past winter, and have made more positive contributions to the club.

Despite the lack of roster moves, New York has fought off its mixed results through the midway point of the campaign and is currently on a run of good form that has clinched the club a playoffs spot for the fifth consecutive season.

The Red Bulls are currently in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with two games remaining. They can drop to fifth or finish as high as second depending how results go in these final two weeks of the season.

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What do you make of Roxburgh leaving the Red Bulls? Surprised? How would you assess the job he has done up to this point?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. What a sad sack NYRB has become. And it’s become this way without any legitimate competition in the market. Just wait until next season. It’s like Red Bull stopped paying attention to its market, stuck its head in the sand, and… nothing else.

    It’s a nice stadium though.

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  2. Stuff like this, along with cheapness over the past two seasons, the failure to do anything to market the team, the failure to have an English language radio deal, the failure to start a USL Pro team etc. is why RBA will be 2/3 full at best Sunday for a crucial end of season match. If they’re in the wild card game, that place will be probably half full.

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  3. Guys what’s the big deal he’s 71. How long think he was gonna stay. Same with henry. We will be ok lets finish season play playoffssee what happens. Got a feeling henry wants a cup only thing missing.you really want to sell worry about hiatus nobody mentions that possibility. Relax I no its hard

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  4. What a disaster! Where is the ambition to build something great for American soccer?!?! And yet the beg people to renew season tickets and invest in a club that promises fixes and never delivers!!! Rather than signing older European stars on the brink of retirement, that could care less… they should be making smarter investments by bringing younger European players in on loan from big clubs. This way you get a higher talent level you wouldn’t normal get in MLS and save on their salaries!

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  5. First of all thank you red bull for helping mlssoccer but your time is up and soccer in the US is growing at a rapid paste.
    Now if its possible, MLS should buy red bull then sell but then the question is, should cosmos or metro come back or have a new team.
    What if red bull arena stays as red bull arena or rent the stadium.
    who knows but time is now.

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  6. I’m not an Nasl fan and not a Cosmos fan (and do think their fan base has a ridiculous over inflates image of the value of The Cosmos Brand) but…… Would love if some rich guy bought RBNY made the Cosmos owners minority investors (don’t think they have the cash to do it themselves) and turned this into Cosmos with the RBNY stadium and infrastructure think it would be a success.

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  7. He has done a poor job… promises of competing on 3 fronts ….2/3 = early failure….loss to Cosmos and knocked out of Champs league… team sits in fourth… and too many empty seats at NYRB… Why should we keep him… nice guy…sure….but the team is laking professionalism.

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  8. Somebody should put the question directly to Roxburgh ASAP. This organization is leaking bad news like it doesn’t care what anyone thinks any more.

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  9. Roxburgh turned a team of 8-9 white starters to a team of 8-9 black starters. I hope his successor can be a little more objective.

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      • no other soccer league on the planet is run like this. Whether he knew or not doesn’t excuse the stupid no good system.

      • when RedBull refuses to spend for a 3rd DP and wont even try to sign Titi for another yr, sorry that’s not MLS salary cap problems! That’s a global company trying to conserve money when people have finally found out that RedBull does NOT give you wings! It’s time to sell and if there is investors (Tan etc) willing to pay 100mil for CUSA’s bones, than someone will pay 300mil for RedBull NY and their stadium!

      • I’m not trying to defend the system, but I don’t think it’s accurate to call Roxburgh a “victim” of the rules that apply to everybody. Come to think of it, though, that last part — “apply to everybody” — has never really been true in GarberWorld, where special deals get made and “the judgment of the league” can trump written roster rules. I’m all for a salary cap, but the rest of the system does stink.

      • Several teams are very successful in this “stupid no good system”. The New Jersey Artificial Stimulants are not one of them

  10. Cleaning house or fleeing a sinking ship? Really sad all this leaked news — Titi & Roxy leaving, team up for sale etc — is coming while the RBs are finally on a good roll this season. Tough to be a fan of this team.

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  11. I guess where there is fire, there is smoke. I just hope the team we got right now just picks themselves up from the distraction and pulls for each other and the fans. Let ownership do their stupid clown show and the players are professionals and do their job. Nothing else can be done to the team itself now. Hopefully Henry and Petke are expressing this.

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  12. If he is leaving cause they didn’t let him sign a 3rd DP then I can understand. Who is going to buy them? Metro is dead, that name is never coming back.

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    • The team was named Metro stars because the original owners were Metro media. Not much different than Red Bulls, just less obvious.

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      • Actually the team name was created by Nike. It was just a coincidence that MetroMedia happened to own/operate the team.

      • Learn some damn history, Metromedia never owned the MetroStars they were owned by Kludge and Subotnick who previously had run MetroMedia Inc and at that time were just partners in other ventures.

  13. Sinking? The ship has sunk. Jerome de Bontin left, Mark de Grandpre replaced him, Roxburgh is leaving, Henry is retiring…that’s like 70 years of football experience walking out the door, to be replaced by…a two-time RedBull Drink employee. Seriously…this team is not even trying to put lipstick on the pig anymore.

    Just sell already.

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  14. Am disappointed…red bulls have no ambition in compete international tournament..like concacaf,US open cup is a joke for this organization….want someone that care about this tournaments and put good teams on the field and represents MLS in a higher level not like the RED bulls….they play very poor and boring soccer….

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    • Yeah, they have been boring and played some uninspiring soccer sometimes especially away from home. They have been rather impressive at home ever since the emergence of Oyongo and Duvall. No one undestands how signing Convey and Eckersley from a team that performed so bad last year was going to be upgrades over Steele(who left) and Barkladge who was pretty descent.

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    • Support the team but the long history — superceding even Red Bulls — of not trying to win CONCACAF Champions League or US Open Cup has been disappointing.

      Oyongo and Duvall are great acquisitions and both should be inked to long term deals.

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