Photo courtesy Philadelphia Union Communications
The Philadelphia Union announced today they have reached a transfer agreement with second-tier English Football League side, Birmingham City F.C., for defender Kai Wagner in exchange for an undisclosed transfer fee. There have been a number of changes to the Union over past week, including the addition of 19-year-old center back Finn Sundstrom, but this is a big move likely to have implications for how the Union play.
“The contributions Kai has made to this club over the last seven seasons have been nothing short of exceptional,” said Philadelphia Union Head Coach, Bradley Carnell. “He has been a crucial piece of this team’s success over the past seven seasons, and we remain grateful not only for his consistent dedication and hard work, but his staunch leadership qualities both on and off the field. At this time, we are honoring Kai’s wishes to continue his career in Europe, as he feels this is the right step for him and his family. We wish him all the best and know he will continue to find success.”
Wagner, 28, established himself as one of Major League Soccer’s top left backs since joining the league in 2019 and he will be sorely missed. He holds the club record for regular season assists with 56, surpassing Sebastien Le Toux’s previous record of 51 assists. With eight career goals, 204 games played (198 starts) and 17,785 minutes logged, Wagner has been a stalwart of the Union’s backline, helping the team secure two Supporters’ Shields and making six playoff appearances, including an MLS Cup Final. Individually, Wagner is a three-time MLS All-Star and two-time MLS Best XI selection. Prior to joining the Union, Wagner came from German third division side Würzburger Kickers.
Wagner will join Birmingham City F.C. who are in the midst of their 2025-26 EFL Championship season, sitting at 14th in the table. The Blues have earned major honors in their history, including two League Cup titles, and were recently promoted from League One to The Championship at the end of the 2024-25 season.
This is an insult. The Championship is no higher in prestige, or talent, than MLS. Also, Birmingham is not even close, this year, to promotion.
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It is my understanding that Birmingham triggered Wagner’s release clause, but is player release clause information publicly available? I would love to see how much we cheapen out on those terms. Typically, you can get away with a much higher release clause if you pay the player a higher salary, or lock in less years on a deal.
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Therefore, we lost any control on this unless Wagner failed to agree to his new contract terms with Birmingham. That would have certainly nullified it. As such, it still came down to Philadelphia’s purse strings. The Union didn’t pay him enough to have a higher release, and/or his salary wasn’t enough for him to reject Birmingham’s contract offer.
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I hope Kai received good financial, as well as sporting advice, though. I ran the cost of living AI comparison for like money for the Philly Suburbs/South Jersey versus Birmingham, and the USA came out over 10% ahead (at a $1M+ income)… assuming we would have paid him more with a rejected Birmingham offer. That is just the financials. The other superior USA intangible benefits weren’t factored in.
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Best of luck, Kai. Hopefully you get promotion to the EPL. Maybe we’ll see you in another go around (like Sebastian!). As for now, who is going to take on the enforcer role for this team (not to mention the minutes)? Kai never took any junk from opposing teams. He turned out to be a perfect Philly guy!
A couple of additional details. The transfer fee was around $2.7mil depending on the euro exchange rate. But more importantly to your point Kai did have a release clause in his renewal that triggered if a European or English team offered over a certain amount. Why not another MLS team? It was rumored that Inter-Messi was looking at him. This is important in light of the fact that he has wanted to return to Europe for a while now.
I was shocked by the news and I don’t know how we are going to replace his production, but after thinking about it I can’t blame this move on Sugerman being cheap. He signed with us for another great year and then triggered his release clause which the team is honoring. Good luck to Kai.
As an side I am not sure cost of living has anything to do with it at his income level! Plenty of “intangibles” in Europe that are superior or that hardly exist in the US so I think that is hardly relevant.