Toronto FC is expected to introduce a new team president Wednesday.

Kevin Payne, who resigned as president and CEO of D.C. United Tuesday, comes to Toronto as one of the winningest executives in Major League Soccer history.

The 59-year-old American will have his work cut out for him at TFC, becoming the top dog — both in the business and soccer operations — at a club which has yet to make the playoffs in its six-year existence and finished dead last in MLS in the 2012 season.

One of the founding fathers of MLS, Payne had served as D.C.’s lead executive from the league’s inception in 1996. In that time, the club won four MLS Cup titles, finished runner-up another time and captured the 1998 CONCACAF Champions Cup.

In a statement on the Washington club’s website Tuesday, Payne said, “thank you so much for the great privilege of having been part of the D.C. United family.

“I’m very excited about the next phase of my life,” he said without offering details.

Payne will be the top executive with TFC, reporting directly to Tom Anselmi, the president and chief operating officer of club owner Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

Payne faces a host of key decisions upon his arrival at a club which is under intense pressure from its disenchanted and frustrated fan base to turn around its fortunes.

At the top of the list is the fate of the coaching staff led by Paul Mariner, TFC’s head coach and director of soccer operations. He became the club’s seventh bench boss in six seasons when he replaced Aron Winter back in June after a 1-9-0 start.

Mariner, a 59-year-old former England international, guided the club to solid a 4-2-4 record in his opening 10 games on the touchline. But a series of key injuries, a lack of depth in many positions and a penchant for late-game collapses saw the Reds finish 2012 on a 0-10-4 run, a 14-match winless streak that was a new mark for futility.

Payne, a member of the board of governors of MLS who sits on the league’s marketing and competition committees, has connections to some key staff at TFC.

Thomas Rongen, the director of the TFC Academy, was head coach at D.C. in 1999, leading the club to an MLS Cup. Earl Cochrane, the Reds’ director of team and player operations, spent two years as D.C.’s director of communications.

Word of Payne’s arrival comes on the same day that TFC reported on its website Frenchman Eric Hassli will be returning for 2013. The club exercised its option for next year on the big striker, who arrived in a trade with the Vancouver Whitecaps on July 20 after Dutch forward Danny Koevermans went down with a season-ending knee injury.

A series of nagging injuries limited him to just seven league games. He had three goals.

At the club’s season-ending news conference, Hassli said he believed Mariner was the right man to turn around the club and that he wanted to be a part of it.

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http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2012/11/27/sp-soccer-toronto-fc-eric-hassli-vancouver-whitecaps-danny-koevermans-paul-mariner.html" target="_blank">French striker Hassli returning to Toronto FCE

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