Key points:
- U.S. Soccer will open a massive training facility in Fayette County in May, as part of its move to metro Atlanta.
- Metro Atlanta’s soccer community helped the city and its suburbs court U.S. Soccer.
- The 230-acre center features 17 fields and will serve as a training center for the Men’s National Team, coaches, and athletes.
For the first time in its history, U.S. Soccer will eschew its nomadic past and plant roots in metro Atlanta. In May, the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center will open in Fayetteville, 25 miles south of Atlanta in Fayette County.
The 230-acre center features 17 fields, providing practice grounds for teams competing at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta this summer. Afterwards, U.S. Soccer intends to use the facility as a training center for the Men’s National Team, coaches, and athletes.
While the move by the soccer federation benefits Atlanta as a host city for World Cup matches this summer, becoming the home of U.S. Soccer will also shape the future of the sport in the United States.
U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson called the Fayetteville center “the physical embodiment of our ambition as a soccer nation.”
Why Atlanta
Ahead of the training center’s opening in May, The World Affairs Council of Atlanta and Bank of America hosted Batson for a fireside chat. Speakers included Max Oligario, the Global Commercial Banking Market Executive for Georgia at Bank of America, and Emmy Award-winning journalist and Council president Rickey Bevington.
Batson and Bevington discussed what attracted U.S. Soccer to Atlanta. Baston, a Georgia native and lifelong soccer fan, credited metro Atlanta’s diversity, dynamism, and proximity to state-of-the-art facilities like Mercedes-Benz Stadium. He also touted Atlanta’s workforce, government, and infrastructure.
“Atlanta likes to come together and do big things. Pulling off a national training center and headquarters, certainly the scale and pace that we were looking to do, is something that required a whole bunch of people to come together,” Batson said. “You needed state and local governments, you needed philanthropic leaders, you needed businesses to really step up.”
The training center will promote diversity and equity among the sport, hosting events like the ADAPTandTHRIVE Invitational, which promotes inclusivity and access for soccer players with disabilities. The U.S. Soccer event takes place May 18-24.
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Women’s soccer on the rise
Batson and Bevington also discussed the impact U.S. Soccer’s move to metro Atlanta will have on women’s soccer.
“Women’s soccer has been on an incredible trajectory,” Batson said.
The success of the U.S. Women’s National Team has directly impacted the National Women’s Soccer League. New teams have emerged in cities like Denver and Boston. Atlanta’s NWSL club, owned by Arthur M. Blank, will debut in 2028. Look for an announcement about the club’s official name and colors soon. In November, Atlanta will bid to host matches for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.
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In recent years U.S. Soccer prioritized building enduring systems to ensure that everyone who wants to play soccer gets to play, especially children.
Rather than perfection, Batson said, U.S. Soccer wants to promote fun and letting kids be kids while playing the sport. It’s part of the mission by U.S. Soccer to produce better players for the future.
“One of the things that I think our country has an opportunity to get better at is embracing that the goal of sports for kids is to have fun,” Batson explained. “Seeing my [three-year-old] son get excited about kicking soccer balls — and pretend to be a dinosaur while he does it — is what it’s about.”
