The North Carolina Courage announced the termination of head coach Sean Nahas on Wednesday. Nahas took over the roster as an interim head coach in October 2021 following the immediate dismissal of former head coach Paul Riley amid multiple sexual misconduct allegations. Nahas was named as permanent head coach ahead of the 2022 NWSL season.

"The North Carolina Courage have terminated the contract of head coach Sean Nahas, effective immediately. The North Carolina Courage remain focused on the continued development of the team and maintaining a professional, competitive environment for players, staff, and supporters," a club statement read.

Just hours before his termination, the former coach posted training photos with club staff and appeared on local radio. Club sporting director Ceri Bowley addressed the media on Thursday, though details were sparse, deficient, and the overall tone was deflective. 

The pregame call was scheduled ahead of the club's match against the Houston Dash on Friday, but recent news of Nahas' dismissal was the lead line of questioning by the media. 

"It was the multiple factors that go into such a decision. And clearly, we're looking forward to finishing the season strong. We're on the cusp of the playoffs, so our primary focus is to finish the season strong," Bowley said in opening comments.

"In situations like this, there's always a multitude of factors that are considered, and a multitude of factors were considered in this situation, the standards of this club are extremely high, and it was felt that there was reasons that we needed to make a change in order to uphold the standards that we expect of North Carolina courage."

The phrasing "multitude of factors" was used over a dozen times during the call when fielding questions around the rationale for Nahas' termination. While Bowley was given the opportunity to answer whether any of the factors were strictly performance-based, he referred back to the club's initial statement and "a multitude of factors."

Factors reportedly include the team record, inconsistent play and a loss of faith in the direction of the team from both players and management, according to ESPN.

"As I've said, there's a multitude of factors that go into such a decision, and there were multiple factors that were considered at this stage," he said regarding Nahas' firing being performance-based.

The executive, on the job since May, now has a new responsibility on his desk, finding the next head coach of the North Carolina Courage, though he echoed that the current priority is Friday's match against Houston and that the search for a new manager will "start in due course."

Considering the league's recent history of investigations into allegations of abuse and North Carolina's club culture mentioned in numerous reports, the club deflected when asked if players were informed of the decision to fire Nahas.

"We're not going to discuss internal process in terms of how players were informed in the situation," Bowley answered.

Assistant coach Nathan Thackeray is expected to serve as interim coach for Friday's match against the Houston Dash. Thackeray took over for a brief interim role when Nahas recently stepped away for personal reasons. Nahas returned to the sidelines with the club last week. 

Under Nahas' leadership, the Courage secured two NWSL Challenge Cup titles and playoff berths in 2023 and 2024, though they never advanced past the first round of playoffs. This year, the Courage sit ninth in the NWSL standings on 19 points but below the playoff line on goal differential.