‘He defines the sport’ in KC: Peter Vermes’ legacy will endure long after exit
Try as all might have to fend it off and hope it would go away, the moment of painful truth had moved from a distant horizon — a contract through 2028 — to increasingly imminent the last few years.
From a glorious span that included winning the 2013 MLS Cup and eight straight postseason appearances, Peter Vermes’ Sporting KC club hadn’t finished higher than eighth in the league standings since 2021.
And now it had begun the 2025 MLS campaign 0-4-1, with attendance fading and some of the most ardent fans clamoring for change, when co-principal owner Mike Illig called Vermes last week.
Nothing unusual about that call, necessarily. After all, they spoke almost every day no matter how things were going.
This time, though, Illig’s tone and message were blunt.
“It wasn’t, ‘Hey, you need to win. It’s a must-win on Saturday,’” Illig on Tuesday recalled saying. “But it was pretty close. There was zero confusion on what the expectations were.”
When Sporting lost 2-1 to Dallas on Saturday, its 13th straight match without a win going back to last year, the end of an era was at hand.
Then the anguishing and disorienting part of it all started: life without Vermes, whom Illig described as a “unicorn” because of the depth and range of his influence on every phase of an organization whose DNA took on Vermes’ very own.
Building as it was toward this, the end was abrupt when Vermes was fired Sunday.
And somewhere between brutal, horrible and heavy, to use Illig’s words.
By his reckoning, it was administered with a 28-second phone call — “come to the office at 6 o’clock” — followed by an 18-minute conversation he never thought he would have to have with a close friend of nearly 20 years.
The verdict was about the present and the future — the foreseeable aspect of which will be guided by interim coach Kerry Zavagnin.
It’s his job to lose, Illig said, even as he announced Sporting has been “inundated with amazing candidates” and will work with two firms to conduct a global search.
But the decision also inherently reiterated the indelible and incredible legacy of Vermes.
Not just in the sense that this ownership group seldom has been in this spot since buying the franchise from MLS founder Lamar Hunt, also a founder of the old American Football League and the future Kansas City Chiefs, the Dallas Texans.
The last time they made such a change was 2009, when Vermes was promoted from technical director to interim head coach to, finally, head coach — a job he held longer than anyone else in MLS history by six-plus years.
For that matter, in a business of constant churn he was the fifth-longest currently tenured coach with one franchise in any of the five major American men’s sports leagues — behind only the ailing Gregg Popovich of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs (since 1996), Mike Tomlin of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers (2006), John Harbaugh of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens (2008) and Erik Spoelstra of the NBA’s Miami Heat (2008).
As of last season, Vermes also became the longest-tenured pro coach with a Kansas City franchise, surpassing Hank Stram’s 15 seasons with the Chiefs (including the three years they were the Dallas Texans).
No wonder that less than 48 hours after the momentous parting Illig had no timeline, “no idea what the process looks like” and wasn’t yet ready to describe what they’d seek in Vermes’ successor to meet the standard ... Vermes established.
His imprint was so profound and in-depth, Illig said, that “it’s going to take a while to unravel” all that he was doing and would be unrealistic to think they’d find any one person to be able to do what he did.
“We’re going to need to take a deep dive and get to work on that …” Illig said, later adding, “but I trust ourselves that we’ll figure that out.”
None of which is to suggest this change wasn’t methodically approached and entirely called for.
Sometimes, alas, it’s just time for a fresh approach and voice, especially when progress is hard to see and the reason for the season, fans, are becoming increasingly frustrated and apathetic.
“If you don’t put a product up that they want to come to see, then they’re not going to show up,” Illig said. “... Lately, there hasn’t been much to want to show up for.”
Too true.
But that doesn’t diminish the past of Vermes, who arguably is akin to Hunt in what he’s meant to the growth of soccer in Kansas City.
Certainly, the 1988 Olympian and men’s U.S. Soccer Player of the Year who in 1990 was a vital part of the first U.S. team in 40 years to play in the FIFA World Cup, will be forever entwined with Sporting’s history.
Even as a player: In his first season with the franchise then dubbed the Wizards, Vermes 25 years ago was the MLS Defender of the Year for a team that won the MLS Cup.
Beyond that, Illig was right when he said Vermes’ “fingerprints are on every era of this club’s modern identity.”
Vermes coached in 609 matches across all competitions, more than half of those in the club’s 30-year history.
And in addition to the 2013 MLS Cup, which was all the more meaningful at a time when the Royals hadn’t been to a postseason in 28 years and the Chiefs hadn’t won a playoff game in nearly two decades, he guided the franchise to three U.S. Open Cups titles (2012, 2015 and 2017).
That status in franchise history is all self-evident. So much so that here’s hoping when some time passes and things simmer down Sporting will find an appropriate way to honor Vermes in perpetuity at Children’s Mercy Park.
A statue, perhaps? A naming element?
Whatever it could be, something substantial in the name of a man Illig knows has been “synonymous” with Sporting is a must.
But here’s something perhaps less obvious about Vermes’ unforgettable feats but even more significant, as The Star’s Blair Kerkhoff brought up during our podcast this week:
When Vermes’ Wizards in 2010 beat Manchester United 2-1 in a friendly before 52,424 at Arrowhead Stadium, it was the beginning of a seismic shift in the soccer landscape here.
Soon came the rebrand and the gorgeous stadium purpose-built for a really cool and winning franchise. Next thing you know, there’s the ultra-modern Compass Minerals National Performance Center, images of soccer-mania during World Cups and the formation of the KC Current and its remarkable endeavors since.
All part of the groundswell that led to Kansas City becoming a 2026 FIFA World Cup host site that also will be able to accommodate up to three base camps regionally.
All traceable back to the through line of the 58-year-old Vermes, the face of soccer in Kansas City.
“His legacy speaks for itself: I mean, he has been such a critical component as a player, as a coach and just as a personality,” Illig said. “He defines the sport in this town and, for the most part, our league as well.”
So even as Sporting starts over, even as Illig noted “the new season begins today,” maybe it’s most fitting that even the context going forward still reflects the baseline of excellence Vermes created before it eroded toward the end.
“He’s a builder. He’s a competitor and a leader who helped shape our culture from the ground up, from lifting trophies and raising standards,” Illig said.
Turning the page toward the future, he added, “we will build on the foundation Peter helped create.”
Unprecedented and at least immediately strange and uncertain as the way there might be without Vermes himself.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 6:00 AM.