The San Jose Earthquakes have hired former Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns president of soccer Gavin Wilkinson as a consultant until the end of the season, the MLS club confirmed to ESPN.
Wilkinson will work under Quakes head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena and help with roster management.
The Quakes have been attempting to fill a gap in the front office since the passing of head sporting strategist Vassili Cremanzidis in February following a battle with cancer. Wilkinson is expected to handle some of the responsibilities that Cremanzidis had.
Wilkinson, 52, helped lead the Timbers to the 2015 MLS Cup title, and led the Thorns to multiple NWSL Shields and Championships following the team's inception in 2013. But off-field controversies dominated his final years in Portland, and he has largely been out of the public eye since being fired by the Thorns/Timbers in October 2022.
Wilkinson was named sporting director of Sporting Kansas City in January of 2024, but he and the club parted ways just over a week later following a backlash from the team's fans due to his tenure in Portland.
"Gavin is a consultant on roster management until the end of the year," San Jose said in a statement to ESPN. "We plan to do a GM search to support Bruce Arena after the season."
Wilkinson's dismissal by Portland came after the release of the Yates Report, which detailed systemic verbal, emotional and sexual abuse by multiple NWSL coaches.
While Wilkinson wasn't sanctioned as a result of the report's findings, he was found to have provided former Thorns manager Paul Riley -- who the report said had engaged in sexual coercion of Thorns players Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly -- with a positive job reference to the Western New York Flash in 2016. The recommendation came despite the Thorns having fired Riley for cause in 2015 as a result of a complaint filed by Shim.
At the time of Riley's firing from the Thorns, Wilkinson publicly portrayed the move as due to a poor 2015 season, combined with Riley's desire to move back to the East Coast.
In terms of the job recommendation, the Yates report said: "Wilkinson told the Flash that Riley was 'put in a bad position by the player,' and that Wilkinson would 'hire [Riley] in a heartbeat.'"
Riley was eventually hired, and he remained with the organization after it was relocated and renamed the North Carolina Courage. He was fired from the Courage after the abuse accusations came to light following reporting by The Athletic in September 2021.
Following the accusations, Wilkinson was placed on paid leave from his position with the Thorns, but was later reinstated in January 2022 after an internal investigation cleared him of wrongdoing. This led to a boycott of stadium concessions and merchandise by some segments of the Timbers' and Thorns' fanbases.
Wilkinson was also involved in the controversy regarding an allegation of domestic violence in May 2021 against then-Timbers midfielder Andy Polo by Génessis Alarcón, the mother of Polo's children. Wilkinson and the Timbers failed to report the case to MLS, as stipulated by league rules.
Despite the allegation, Wilkinson exercised the option on Polo's contract six months after the incident. Polo was cut from the team in February 2022 once the allegation became public. A league investigation concluded that Wilkinson and the Timbers weren't aware of the requirement to report the incident, but the club was still fined $25,000. Alarcón later prevailed in a civil suit against Polo, and was awarded $600,000.
A native of Auckland, New Zealand, Wilkinson's career as a player took him to Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Ireland before he concluded his playing career with the Timbers from 2001-06. He later served as coach and general manager of the club from 2007-10 when it was in the USL, and continued as GM when the team moved to MLS in 2011. At international level, Wilkinson earned 38 caps for New Zealand.