St. Louis to hire ex-Montréal exec Wray as sporting director

St. Louis City SC has agreed personal terms with former CF Montréal executive Corey Wray to be the team’s next sporting director, sources told ESPN.

Wray is expected to sign a multi-year contract, which could happen as soon as late Friday. He replaces Lutz Pfannenstiel who was fired last August. Wray, a Canadian citizen, must still acquire a work visa before he can begin working in St. Louis. An official announcement is expected on Monday.

Among the candidates that Wray beat out were current St. Louis technical director John Hackworth. Sources confirmed to ESPN that Brentford technical director Lee Dykes was also a candidate.

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Wray’s immediate task will be to hire a new head coach . The team parted ways with Olof Mellberg on May 25 after just 15 matches in charge.

Reserve team manager David Critchley took over on an interim basis. St. Louis finished the season in 13th place in the Western Conference with a record of 8W-18L-8D, nine points out of the playoff places.

One source with knowledge of the team’s inner workings said that the club’s preference will be for Wray to hire a coach that fits the club’s desired style of play, which is to play aggressively and with high intensity. There is also a desire for the coach to contribute to the building of an infrastructure that will be successful over an extended period of time. St. Louis will look at candidates both domestically and abroad.

The source added that Critchley is a candidate for the full-time managerial role, but that Hackworth, who has worn a variety of hats for the St. Louis organization and has previous managerial experience in MLS with the Philadelphia Union as well as St. Louis on an interim basis in 2024, is “not actively a candidate.”

Wray spent the bulk of his career at Toronto FC, having started out as an intern in 2006 before rising through the ranks to be the assistant general manager in 2017. Wray left the club in 2020 to take a similar role under former Toronto executive Tim Bezbatchenko, and also served as GM of the team’s reserve side, Columbus Crew 2, which plays in MLS Next Pro.

Crew 2 won the MLS Next Pro championship in the team’s first campaign in 2022, with Wray winning the MLS Next Pro Executive of the Year that same season.

Wray’s tenure in Montréal proved to be brief. He was hired in June of 2024 as a consultant on technical matters, and was named director of soccer the following November. While Montréal did reach the playoffs in 2024, the team struggled through a difficult season the following year, finishing in 13th place out of 15 teams in the Eastern Conference with a record of 6-18-10.

That mark saw the club — which, according to data from the MLS Players Association, had the lowest payroll in the league — finish 25 points back of Orlando City for the ninth and last playoff slot. Wray was let go in August.

It was primarily Wray’s experiences in Toronto and Columbus that got his candidacy over the finish line in St. Louis. One source with knowledge of the process said that Wray has experience building teams into “high-performing organizations.”

Wray figures to have more resources in St. Louis than he had in Montreal, though City was still in the bottom half of the league in terms of total spend, ranking 19th out of 30 teams with a payroll of $19.3 million. St. Louis recently announced the signing of veteran goalkeeper Roman Bürki to a Designated Player contract.