Fans heartbroken, angry as Winnipeg's Valour FC announces suspension of operations
CBC
Winnipeg's professional men's soccer club, Valour FC, announced Friday it has suspended operations.
The club, which played in the Canadian Premier League, issued a statement thanking fans, players and staff.
The club says it will fulfil contractual obligations toward players and staff until the end of the year. Players under contract past the 2025 season will become free agents or return to parent clubs, the statement said.
Fans holding credits in their ticket accounts will receive full refunds and the club will contact account holders with details and next steps, according to the statement.
"I had heard and, unfortunately, knew it was coming. I think it's really, really disappointing," said Rob Gale, Valour's first head coach and general manager, who was relieved of his duties in September 2021.
"Yeah, bitterly disappointed in the way it's gone since I left the organization."
The team was owned by the Winnipeg Football Club, which runs the CFL's Blue Bombers. The organization treated Valour as "a tax writeoff and an afterthought," according to Gale.
Bombers president and CEO Wade Miller declined an interview request from CBC.
Gale said he and other Valour coaches created initiatives designed to build the relationship between the team and the city, such as working with local players to develop the youth soccer system in Winnipeg.
"I think the first year we had 11 Manitobans, so there was a real connection to the community," he said, adding that seemed to work.
"We had a couple of games well over 10,000 fans in that first year. And I think we averaged the highest number of fans and had the least amount of debt in that first year."
But coming out of the COVID-19 years, the team was abandoned by the Winnipeg Football Club, according to Gale.
"Unfortunately, what became very apparent to us is a lot of our good ideas for the community and the development organization would be used for the Bombers' student initiatives," he said.
"And I think Valour then just became an inconvenience rather than the project that it should have been, and what it could have been to our community."
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