Is firing Miguel Angel Ramirez a red flag for Charlotte FC?

Full question submitted by Shreyas R.: Is the quick firing of Miguel Angel Ramirez a big organizational red flag for Charlotte FC?

So…

…yeah, I’m thinking there are some organizational red flags with Charlotte FC.

There’s a lot of speculation about what, exactly, Miguel Angel Ramirez did to lose his job earlier this week, and who, exactly, is at fault in a more general sense. Obviously, Charlotte’s results didn’t warrant Ramirez’s firing. Charlotte’s Sporting Director, Zoran Krneta, said the club “had to do it.” There’s a report from The Athletic that Ramirez clashed with Krneta and several players. There was also news that a Charlotte DP, almost certainly being Karol Swiderski, would refuse to play for the club after the international break if Ramirez was still in charge.

All of that sounds like significantly more than the ho-hum, average firing of a coach that Krneta was trying to sell.

Sometimes a manager doesn’t gel with a team and their organization. That’s not really my concern here. I think a more pressing question is how we got here so quickly. Ramirez was announced as Charlotte’s manager last July, the new season started in March, and despite significantly overperforming what most people expected of Charlotte this season, the relationship between coach, players, and front office is already untenable before June. That things fell apart so quickly doesn’t suggest great foresight by the front office, who presumably worked with Ramirez for months to build the team prior to the season even beginning.

Then, there’s Ramirez’s complaints about signings that didn’t go forward as he expected them to, the club’s training facility situation, and, now, the fact that their owner’s company just filed for bankruptcy and can’t even build the training facility for the Carolina Panthers.

I don’t know or even particularly care all that much about who is “right” in the Ramirez situation, provided nothing ethically or morally wrong was taking place, which does not seem to be the case. What I do care about is the growth of soccer in the United States, and I think teams entering MLS with a bunch of money and then just proceeding to be a black pit of organizational dysfunction is bad. I’m seeing plenty of dysfunction from Charlotte so far, and it starts all the way at the top.

I don’t think Charlotte is going to fold or is in imminent danger of ceasing operations, or anything like that. But if I was a Charlotte FC fan, I would be extremely concerned about how my club was being run, and who was running it.