Former Adelaide United player Ryan Tunnicliffe angry over alleged Reds’ attempt to ‘force’ his departure

Former Adelaide United midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe has broken his silence on the “disgraceful” way he was treated by the Reds, claiming the club deliberately attempted to break his “resolve” and force him to leave. The 32-year-old Englishman’s comments come on the back of revelations this week made by former Reds assistant coach Travis Dodd, and the subsequent way Tunnicliffe says they were “downplayed” by club chief executive officer Nathan Kosmina. Dodd claimed in an interview with 7 News that Adelaide’s technical director Ernest Faber was “undermining” the club’s recently departed coach Carl Veart during the Reds’ 2024-25 campaign, including calling a “secret meeting” with the squad’s player leadership group to tell them that “they could pick the team”. The report also claimed that Faber made Tunnicliffe train by himself for two weeks and undertake “torturous running sessions”. “Credit to him, for two weeks … he did what he was asked to do. Seemingly Ernest had enough after two weeks, and let him rejoin the first-team squad,” Dodd said. In a post on Saturday on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Tunnicliffe said he wasn’t going to comment out of “respect for the team, the manager and his staff”. However, comments made by Kosmina to Channel 10 on Friday led to Tunnicliffe feeling “compelled to respond”. “Different players respond differently to different coaching techniques … that balance is always a tricky one,” Kosmina said. “Regardless of right or wrong, what we don’t want is to be dragged into a tit-for-tat in the media.” Tunnicliffe – whose contract wasn’t renewed after his only A-League appearance during the 2024-25 season was as a 90th-minute substitute in a 4-0 win over Central Coast in December – said the Reds “sought to downplay both the situation and the club’s handling of it”. “Being separated from the playing group and made to train in isolation, was not only deeply disappointing, it was disgraceful,” he said. “Throughout this period, I continued to fulfil all contractual obligations, remained professional, and did everything that was asked of me. “I was the only player subjected to this so-called ‘individualised program’, which in reality appeared to be a targeted effort to pressure me out of the club as part of a cost-cutting measure. It was, in my view, a deliberate attempt to undermine my resolve and force my departure.” Tunnicliffe also rejected Channel 10’s claim it had been told that he “gave the Reds a favourable review” in an end-of-season player survey. “As for the so-called ‘favourable’ end-of-year player survey … this claim is entirely fabricated,” he said. Tunnicliffe said he was “currently taking legal advice on the matter”. Professional Footballers Australia chief executive officer Beau Busch said Adelaide’s alleged treatment of Tunnicliffe had breached the collective bargaining agreement. “The practice of forcing players to train alone and excluding them from their team has no place in the A-League's and is a breach of the collective bargaining agreement,” Busch said. “We are in contact with Ryan and the club. We will ensure Ryan is supported, and engage with the club to address the matter.” Busch is also set to meet with another departed Adelaide player, Josh Cavallo, who was also critical of the club, and the treatment he received from the Reds. “Carl (Veart) was under clear instructions by the people above him (Ernest Faber) during pre-season that I wasn’t allowed to step foot on the pitch … hence was I was sidelined fit for the entire season,” Cavallo said in a social media post this week. “What you think Adelaide United is, think again. It’s not quite what I believed it was. It broke my heart and also my career as a footballer.” The club declined to comment or provide a statement to News Corp Australia about the different allegations.