Gary Stempel

Gary Stempel

Personal information
Full name	Gary Stempel
Date of birth	(1957-01-26) 26 January 1957
Place of birth	Panama City, Panama
Team information
Current team	Panama (interim head coach)
Managerial career
Years	Team
1996–1998	San Francisco
1998–2001	Panamá Viejo
2001–2007	San Francisco
2002–2003	→ Panama U-20
2003	→ Panama U-23
2007	Águila
2008–2009	Panama
2009–2010	San Francisco
2011	Guatemala U-17
2012–2016	San Francisco
2018–2019	Panama under-17
2018–2019	Panama (intern)

Gary Stempel (born 26 January 1957) is a Panamanian football manager.

Career

Prior to his move to Panama, Stempel was a community outreach officer with London club Millwall. He enjoyed his greatest success as at club level in a four-year spell as manager of San Francisco, a Panamanian football club, during which he won five league titles and two championships with Panama Viejo.

It was during this time that he was also given charge of the Panama under-20 and under-23 teams. He qualified Panama to its first-ever U-20 World Cup in 2003.

In 2007, he became manager of Salvadorian club Águila and in 2008 he was given the opportunity to take charge of the Panamanian national team. During his tenure as national team coach, Panama won the Central American Nations Cup in 2009. It was the first time Panama had won a major international championship.

After this success, he led the team to the quarter-finals at the 2009 Gold Cup.

Stempel has also been working as a FIFA coach instructor and has conducted courses for coaches in St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Belize, Nicaragua and Suriname.

From 2012-16, Gary Stempel was coach for the San Francisco football club located in La Chorrera, Panama.

After the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the current Panama manager, Hernán Darío Gómez, resigned. Stempel was subsequently named interim manager until Panama appoint their next full-time manager. That manager ended up being Julio Dely Valdés.

In October 2019, Gary Stempel was awarded the Member of the British Empire for his services to youth and sport in Panama.

Personal life

Stempel was born in Panama to a Panamanian father, and English mother. He moved to England at the age of 6, and remained there for 34 years holding UK citizenship, before moving back to coach San Francisco. He has an English wife and two daughters.