The Big Interview: Christina Unkel
The Tampa Bay Sun President has been a professional FIFA referee, TV analyst and lawyer before turning her attention to running a club in the new USL Super League in the USA...
“I’m fascinated about how it looks from your guys’ perspective,” ponders Christina Unkel, possibly with a wry smile, adding, “you know, how the sausage is made vs actually receiving the product....”
The topic she is actually talking about is not in fact processed meat, but the new USL Super League in the USA, and more specifically the unique nature of a country launching a second professional top division, joining the well-established NWSL.
And why is someone better known in the USA as a former FIFA referee and this side of the pond the referee analyst who joined ITV during the men’s European Championships in the summer discussing it?
Because Unkel is the President of one of the eight brand new USL franchises, close to where she calls home in Sarasota - Tampa Bay Sun.
“All in all, it’s a brand new business, brand new club, brand new league. There’s a lot of work in what we call year zero,” says Unkel. “The obstacles to overcome, the standards to set and sticking to those standards.”
Unkel’s journey, if you haven’t worked it out yet, has been an eclectic one.
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She has seen the game grow from a unique perspective as a former referee in the NWSL all while training to become a lawyer, giving her the good business sense which has allowed her to take on the top job at what is essentially, as she says, a startup business.
“Having been at the foreground of women’s professional soccer in WPS I have in an interesting way seen it at different levels because I was a professional referee, I wasn’t in it from a ‘building it from scratch’ point of view.
“I would say with confidence that year one of this league would be somewhere around year seven or eight of the NWSL, based on what we have seen home and away, the media and marketing, the level of players coming to the league and those who have shown significant interest, because I’m already working on the 2025/26 roster.
“The runway to launching a professional league now isn’t going through the same growing pains as the NWSL, but it does mean we have to ramp things up pretty quick!”
There are though a lot of questions given it is only year one, and while Unkel’s Sun side are doing well and sit mid-table heading into the winter break, one thing those involved with the league are keen to impress is that the USL is not a direct rival to the NWSL, but merely offering further opportunities for female footballers to become professional in one of the most populated nations in the world.
Check out WFC’s other recent Big Interviews…
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