Earnie Stewart and Brian McBride leave U.S. Soccer

Sporting director Earnie Stewart is leaving the U.S. Soccer Federation to become the director of football at Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, U.S. Soccer announced Thursday, and general manager Brian McBride is out as previously reported.

Both departures were voluntary, the governing body and the two men insisted. CEO JT Batson said the continuing Reyna/Berhalter scandal had “no impact whatsoever.” But the optics are clear: Given the chance to clean house, U.S. Soccer is taking it.

“While we certainly didn’t plan it this way, this presents us with a great opportunity,” U.S. Soccer president Cindy Cone said in a news conference after the announcement. “I know this moment feels a bit uncertain — for you in the media, for our staff, for players. What it actually is, is a clean canvas.”

Stewart joined U.S. Soccer in August 2018 as men’s team GM. A year later, he was promoted to sporting director, with oversight of the men’s and women’s program’s, when Kate Markgraf was hired as women’s team GM. He had previously been the Union’s sporting director from 2016-18, and before then held front-office jobs at clubs in the Netherlands — the country where he was born to a U.S. serviceman stationed abroad.

» READ MORE: Cindy Cone says U.S. Soccer’s Reyna-Berhalter investigation should finish in ‘the coming weeks’

“When the opportunity arose to return to the Netherlands to pursue an exciting and challenging role that was near my family, I could not turn it down,” Stewart said in a statement. “I am extremely proud of what our sporting department has accomplished over the past four years to advance the next generation of players and increase participation in the sport across the country. This is a pivotal time for the sport in the United States and I have full confidence in the leadership of U.S. Soccer heading into 2026 and beyond.”

Officially, Stewart’s last day with U.S. Soccer is Feb. 15. Cone and Batson will lead the search for a new sporting director, assisted by consulting firm Sportsology. The company has worked with a range of pro and college sports teams in recent years.

“There have been many roles that have come his way throughout his tenure at U.S. Soccer. … This was one that both JT and I, we just really understood why this was something that he couldn’t turn down,” Cone said of Stewart. “It was an opportunity for him on a very personal level to be near his family and to return home, and we agreed to let him out of his contract. … We did not plan it this way.”

That last clause was implicit confirmation of something that’s been reported for months but never confirmed: Last summer, U.S. Soccer extended Stewart’s contract through 2026. A spokesperson finally made it official on Thursday.

McBride, who like Stewart was a Hall of Fame player in the late-1990s and 2000s, became the men’s team GM at the start of 2020. When his departure was first reported last Friday, it was cast by many media outlets as a dismissal. In fact, it was voluntary. He said in a statement on Twitter that he decided last October to leave at the end of the year.

“I am sure some are asking why I didn’t release this in October,” McBride said. “The simple answer is I didn’t want any focus off of the team in the lead-up or during the World Cup. I felt in order to have a successful World Cup, the focus needed to be about the players and the coaches.”

» READ MORE: USMNT general manager Brian McBride leaves the job

Cone said U.S. Soccer’s brass asked McBride to stay on through the end of January “to help us in this transition, because we knew that Gregg [Berhalter]’s contract was up,” referring to the former men’s coach. “And obviously we didn’t know about the investigation at that point, but we knew that we were going to have this transitional moment early in the year.”

McBride added that he had planned to say something in December, “but another opportunity inside the federation arose while there.” He didn’t say what it was, only that he looked into it and “felt it was one that would fit seamlessly with my position in leadership. Unfortunately, the position has been put on hold for the foreseeable future.”

What was that job? A source with knowledge of the matter said it was a new position under consideration to be created, but was not ultimately created. No further details are available yet.

Cone said she’d like to have the new sporting director hired before the women’s World Cup kicks off in July, and she’d like to have the new men’s team manager and GM hired “by the end of the summer.” But she also indicated that there might not be a new men’s team GM.

“Alongside Sportsology, we’re going to evaluate the entire sporting department, and that includes the GM role,” she said. “We’re not dead-set on having the exact same structure on the men’s side as we have on the women’s side.”

She later added: “We’re not putting definitive timelines on this, because we want to do it right and we want to make sure we have the right person in place. It’s not just a short-term fix ... We’re going to move quickly, but we’re not going to rush the process.”

» READ MORE: Claudio and Danielle Reyna, Gio’s parents, admit to disclosing incident to U.S. Soccer concerning Gregg Berhalter

What’s for sure right now is that interim U.S. men’s manager Anthony Hudson will stay in the job until the new front office structure is set. The U.S. men’s team has official games to play in the spring and summer, in Concacaf’s Nations League and Gold Cup. But as long as the team wins its final Nations League group stage games in March, the rest won’t matter much. Indeed, it’s likely that most fans won’t complain if the Gold Cup squad is a young group aimed at next year’s Olympics.

“Earnie and team have built a great bench to be able to carry us forward in a very positive way in the interim, while we’re mapping out our long-term plan,” Batson said.

Cone said Berhalter “remains a candidate” to get his old job back. But right now, a U.S. Soccer spokesperson said, he is not an employee of the governing body.

“JT and I will definitely be very involved in the hiring of our sporting director, and we’ll be leading that search and that hire alongside Sportsology — and obviously we will bring in other people as we need to,” Cone said. “On the head coaching job, I will work directly with Sportsology on that to continue to move that search forward. And then as we bring the sporting director on board, that sporting director will then join me in leading that search, and ultimately the new sporting director will be tasked with hiring the men’s national team coach.”

» READ MORE: Will the USMNT play in the 2024 Copa América? U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson opens the door to it.