The Union have fired Bradley Carnell, and Ernst Tanner is out as sporting director
After winning the Supporters’ Shield with MLS’s best regular-season record last year, Carnell’s overhauled team started this year with a six-game losing streak and one win in its first 15 games.
The Union fired manager Bradley Carnell on Wednesday, four days after the team entered MLS’s World Cup break in last place with a 1-10-4 record.
After winning the Supporters’ Shield with the league’s best regular-season record last year, Carnell was named Coach of the Year. But this year, his overhauled team started with a six-game losing streak.
That snowballed into what is now the only one-win mark leaguewide, and the only one with 10 losses. Carnell’s contract was to end after this season.
“On behalf of the Philadelphia Union organization, I want to thank Bradley for his dedication and commitment to the club during his time here,” Union principal owner Jay Sugarman said in a statement.
“He brought professionalism and passion to his role, and we appreciate everything he has contributed to the team and the organization,” Sugarman said. “We are confident that he will find success in his future coaching endeavors.”
Union reserve team coach Ryan Richter will take over as interim manager while the Union begin what they said will be a “global search” for the next manager. Richter, 37, is a Southampton, Bucks County, native who played at La Salle, then for the Union in 2011 amid a journeyman career.
After hanging up his cleats in 2017, Richter returned to the Union the next year, first as an academy coach. He has led Union II since the start of 2025. His first game in charge of the first team will be July 22 against rival Red Bull New York at Subaru Park.
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“While the search for a new head coach begins immediately, we have full confidence in Ryan’s ability to lead the team through this transition, given his familiarity with the players and strong commitment to the club’s philosophy and style of play,” Sugarman said.
Details on Ernst Tanner’s end
Just as significantly, the team announced that Jon Scheer has been elevated to sporting director from interim sporting director. Scheer has been in the role since Ernst Tanner was suspended in March after a league investigation “substantiated” allegations of discriminatory behavior.
That suspension came with a league mandate for Tanner to complete what it called a “restorative practices program.”
A source with knowledge of the matter told The Inquirer that Tanner is still in that program and is planning to complete it. Technically, he is not out of the organization, but the team’s higher-ups decided that now was the time to make moves to stabilize the front office. So Tanner is no longer the sporting director.
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Why hasn’t he been directly fired? No doubt one of the reasons is the lawyers involved in his suspension, as they have been since The Guardian first reported the allegations last November.
A source also said that Tanner’s contract is up at the end of 2026 and that Tanner had always planned to return to Europe after that.
Sugarman and Scheer are scheduled to hold a news conference Thursday morning at Subaru Park.
The World Cup break brought a natural opportunity to make changes. But the brass will no doubt be pressed on how much of the team’s woeful season is on the players and how much is on Carnell’s hands.
There might also be questions about whether Carnell hurt himself by speaking too bluntly in recent days. His headline-making words included an admission that the team perhaps “bit off more than they could chew” and a statement that “some clarity” might come after Tanner’s suspension ends on June 1.
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In the end, the team did not wait for that date to make a move.
“I want to thank the fans, the players, the staff, and everyone involved with this club for the support and commitment during my time here,” Carnell said in a statement the Union issued.
“I’m proud of what we accomplished together and grateful for the relationships and memories we built along the way. To my staff and especially the players, thank you for your hard work and dedication through both the highs and the challenges. You inspired me every day and I appreciate the opportunity to have been part of this team,” Carnell said.
How Carnell’s fall unfolded
The Union hired Carnell in January 2025 to succeed Jim Curtin, the club’s longtime manager fired at the end of the 2024 campaign. Carnell’s high-pressing system yielded immediate results in his first season, as the Union went on a 13-game unbeaten streak that started in May and ended in June.
That unbeaten stretch, which occurred shortly after the Union sold all-time leading scorer Dániel Gazdag to the Columbus Crew in April, helped power the club to its second all-time trophy. The 66-point total was one short of matching the club record set in 2022.
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But signs of trouble with the Union popped up before the postseason, starting with a 7-0 thrashing at the Vancouver Whitecaps in September. It was the most lopsided loss in club history and tied for the most lopsided in league history.
In the playoffs, the Union swept a best-of-three first-round series against the Chicago Fire. Then they lost the single-game conference semifinal, 1-0, to New York City FC at Subaru Park.
In the offseason, the front office launched an overhaul that was years overdue, but ended up hurting a lot. Out went Tai Baribo, Kai Wagner, Mikael Uhre, and Jakob Glesnes; and in came younger players including 20-year-old striker Ezekiel Alladoh, for a club-record transfer fee of $4.5 million.
Carnell’s new squad started the year by easily beating Trinidad & Tobago’s Defence Force FC in the first round of the Concacaf Champions Cup. But it could not top Mexican grandee Club América in the next round, and then came the six-game winless run in the league.
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The lone win in 15 league games this year was April 12 at CF Montréal. The last contest before the World Cup break was Sunday’s 6-4 loss at Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez’s Inter Miami. Though the Union led by 2-0 early and 3-1 later in the first half, it said something that few fans expected the team to hold on for the win.
It’s not the first time Carnell has endured a first-to-worst turn and a midseason firing. A similar thing happened at St. Louis City SC: a Western Conference regular-season title as an expansion team in 2023 followed by a crash in the first round of the playoffs, and winless streaks of five and nine games to start 2024.
Carnell was ultimately dismissed 20 games into that campaign.
Nine nations will compete in five group stage matches this summer, plus two more in a knockout game on July 4. Here’s what you need to know about those countries — and what those fans need to know about Philly. Click here for more.
