Media’s Auston Trusty moves to Birmingham City on loan from Arsenal

The Union's cut of Trusty's move to Arsenal ended up being just over $300,000.

Media's Auston Trusty playing for the Colorado Rapids in April.Read moreJack Dempsey / AP

Published Jul. 15, 2022, 4:59 p.m. ET

Media’s Auston Trusty will spend his first professional season in Europe with Birmingham City of England’s second division.

Arsenal, the Premier League team that bought Trusty from the Colorado Rapids in late January, announced Friday that it loaned the 23-year-old centerback to Birmingham.

The move comes after Trusty returned to Colorado for the first half of the MLS season. His time with the Rapids officially ends on Sunday — coincidentally a day after Arsenal plays Everton in a preseason exhibition game in Baltimore (7 p.m., WatchStadium.com).

Arsenal and the Rapids are both owned by Stan Kroenke, the billionaire whose sports team holdings also include the NFL’s reigning Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, the NHL’s reigning Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

Trusty has already arrived at Birmingham’s preseason training camp, and did an interview for the team’s YouTube channel that was published Friday.

“It kind of has a stigma to it — American soccer, but I think more American players coming overseas and proving themselves, proving that they can play over here, it’s really changing the [way people] look at American soccer,” Trusty said in the team interview. “It feels like everything is falling into place, really just waiting for me to take advantage of it.”

Trusty grew up in the Union’s academy, turned pro in 2016 with the club’s reserve team, and played in MLS in 2018 and ‘19. The Union then traded him to Colorado for $750,000, and a cut of a future transfer fee minus the initial sum.

The Athletic reported that Arsenal paid $2 million to acquire Trusty, and a source with knowledge of the deal said that the Union pocketed just over $300,000.

Trusty isn’t the only Philly-area native on the move in European soccer. Downingtown-bred Zack Steffen is on his way from Manchester City to English second-division team Middlesbrough so he can get regular playing time before the World Cup. Steffen reportedly had his medical exams at Middlesbrough on Friday.