By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK, June 26 (Reuters) - As the United States men's national soccer team advances in the World Cup, fans from Wall Street to the wider world have an unexpected patron to thank for some of the American team's recent success.
Billionaire investor Ken Griffin, best known for running hedge fund Citadel and a lifelong soccer fan, made the largest financial contribution to hire Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino as the U.S. national team's coach nearly two years ago, a Citadel spokesman
confirmed.
Pochettino, who previously coached prominent soccer clubs Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, was recruited to rebuild a U.S. squad that had been eliminated from the Copa America in 2024 but has now advanced to the knockout rounds in the 2026 World Cup.
The U.S. team is set to play Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1 in the round of 32 and has generated so much excitement that some Wall Street portfolio managers, bankers and lawyers have been flying across the country to attend games, and have instructed colleagues not to contact them during three hours of critical play, several of them said.
Griffin built a large and profitable investment firm by paying top dollar for traders and portfolio managers, Wall Street recruiters said, and he did not flinch when a fellow hedge fund manager, Scott Goodwin, asked him to help pay for Pochettino's two-year contract, a Citadel spokesman confirmed.
The 57-year-old hedge fund manager began playing soccer at age 6, competed on a high school team that finished second in the state and continued to play and coach as an adult, the spokesman said.
Reuters could not learn how much Griffin paid.
HEDGE FUND'S PERFORMANCE
Miami-based Citadel oversees $68 billion in assets and was named the most profitable hedge fund of all time for the fourth consecutive year in 2025 by LCH Investments, which publishes an annual industry ranking.
This year its flagship Wellington multi-strategy hedge fund is up 5% through June 22, a fund investor said.
Griffin has donated more than $2.5 billion to causes ranging from medical research to political campaigns and made headlines for giving more than half a billion dollars to his alma mater, Harvard, where he started trading in his dormitory.
Soccer also benefited when Griffin donated $3 million to the U.S. Soccer Foundation in 2017 to fund 50 mini-pitches across Chicago, where Citadel was then headquartered. Six years later, he donated $5 million to support the development of 50 mini-pitches in Miami-Dade County, Florida, his home state where the hedge fund is now headquartered. Griffin also founded Citadel Securities, a market making firm that is also headquartered in Miami. Soccer, Griffin has said, can give players the experience of teamwork, discipline and joy of competition.
For the 2026 World Cup, Griffin and real estate developer Stephen Ross donated more than 1,200 tickets to Miami residents to attend games in Miami, one of the official host cities for the World Cup.
"It’s been a special experience to have the World Cup in America," Griffin told Reuters, adding, "my children and I enjoyed the match in Miami on Father's Day" when Uruguay and Cape Verde tied 2-2.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York; Editing by Colin Barr and Matthew Lewis)
