The cause of death was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, his daughter Rebecca Payne said.
An influential figure in soccer’s growth in the United States over the past three decades, Payne put together United’s original investment group ahead of the inaugural 1996 MLS season and served as the club’s top executive from 1994 to 2001 and again from 2004 to 2012.
Since 2015, he had worked as the CEO and executive director of the soccer development organization US Club Soccer.
“He was a good friend,” Gulati said, “and an absolutely critical part of the sport’s growth over the last 30-plus years.”
United was particularly prolific during Payne’s first stint, winning three of the first four MLS Cup championships, two Supporters’ Shield titles for the league’s best regular season record and the 1996 U.S. Open Cup crown.
The team was led from its inception by former University of Virginia coach Bruce Arena — who would go on to steer the U.S. men’s national team to the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals — and featured the likes of Bolivian stars Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno and U.S. national team stalwarts Eddie Pope and John Harkes. United ruled over the region as well, beating Mexico’s Toluca for the 1998 Concacaf Champions Cup — still one of just three continental titles won by MLS teams.
After leaving the club to serve as vice president and managing director of AEG Soccer in 2001, Payne took charge of six MLS teams — the Los Angeles Galaxy, Colorado Rapids, Chicago Fire, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, San Jose Earthquakes and United — as the fledging league navigated a time of contraction and financial uncertainty.
He returned to United as the club’s president and CEO in 2004, when the team earned its fourth and most recent MLS Cup title. D.C. also won two more Supporters’ Shields and another U.S. Open Cup before Payne stepped down in 2012 and embarked on a one-year stint as Toronto FC’s president and general manager.
“He will always be remembered as a dedicated champion of our club, MLS, our community and soccer in the U.S.,” United said in a statement. “Our deepest condolences go out to his family.”
Payne was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2021 under the institution’s “Builder” designation, and also earned U.S. Soccer’s Werner Fricker Builder Award in 2011. (Fricker was the president of U.S. Soccer when he hired Payne to be the federation’s national administrator in 1989.) Payne was added to United’s Hall of Tradition in 2015.
Born March 5, 1953, Payne worked as a radio journalist in New York and as a special events executive in Vail, Colo., before taking a job as an executive for U.S. Soccer in 1989. Two years later, he became the president of Soccer USA Partners, a firm that owned the marketing and broadcast promotion rights to the U.S. men’s national team in the buildup to the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
During his National Soccer Hall of Fame induction speech, Payne recalled his early days with United as some of the “most enjoyable times” of his professional life. He also remembered his meeting with Fricker more than 30 years ago, when Fricker asked him why he wanted to work in soccer.
“I told Werner Fricker I wasn’t looking for a job,” said Payne, whose first exposure to the sport was a delayed-tape showing of the 1966 World Cup final. “I wanted to make a difference in our sport, I wanted to accomplish something and I wanted to leave something behind, which would live on after I was gone. I’ve tried my best. I hope I’ve succeeded.”
Scott Allen and Steven Goff contributed to this report.
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