Rob Zarkos, Real Salt Lake's vice president of soccer administration, Dell Loy Hansen, RSL's owner, Mike Petke, RSL's new head coach, and Craig Waibel, RSL's general manager, attend a press conference about Petke at the Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – The Real Salt Lake upper management announced some changes to its front office for all three of its professional teams along with its academy.
Rob Zarkos will return as executive president of soccer operations. He had been working in different areas for the team from 2014-2018. Zarkos will manage RSL, the Monarchs, Utah Royals FC, and Real Salt Lake Academy teams.
“I’m excited for this opportunity and it gives me the authority to get things done and execute Mr. Hansen’s vision,” Zarkos said in a statement. “This will allow us to integrate from top-to-bottom efficiently. We’ve grown very quickly and it’s time to integrate everything, put in systems, processes and procedures and generally operate better. I come from a background of building companies and optimizing them, so when it came time to optimize the team side, I jumped at it.”
The team said this will allow Craig Waibel to narrow his focus building up the roster for Real Salt Lake. He will continue to oversee the rosters and technical departments of the Real Monarchs SLC and academy teams.
Stephanie Lee received a promotion as well and will now serve as URFC’s general manager. She had been serving as managing director since it first came to Utah in 2017. Dan Enger will stay in the role of general manager for the Real Monarchs.
Real Salt Lake will open up training camp next Monday. The regular season will kick-off when the team travels to take on the Houston Dynamo March 2nd. Home opener will be March 9.