Thread by @salishsea86

A thread: Hey @WhitecapsFC I want you to know that a few months ago when I booked this trip to New York I booked a flight home that has me rising at 330am ET on Saturday to fly LGA to YYZ to YVR in time to watch the Whitecaps play the Union at 2pm

I kind of pride myself on bending an insane travel schedule around Caps matches, because I inexplicably love the club.

At least I did.

It’s clear to me now that you aren’t a club. It felt like one at some point but even when you were obviously acting like a franchise, I still cling to the Dream that we had a local team run by local people.

It’s clear to me now that even though you call me a member, I’m just a nuisance. I ask for small things, like seeing our workplace safety policy and it’s not available. You say it’s “internal” and I guess I’m not internal.

i believe we can do good together. I wear a #vwfc pride scarf. Along with the @Southsiders we’ve raised thousands for a Squamish language program. We participate in programs to address and eliminate racism in football.

But underneath it all you’ve swept some pretty ugly skeletons making a mockery of our efforts. Furlong’s history, the harassment of the women’s team, and now this coach, whose racist actions seemed not to tarnish an “exemplary” history for you.

It’s like, all this effort we supporters put into good things, you just mock with your actions and then you double down when you get called out, with utter contempt, closing ranks, getting defensive and issuing meaningless anonymous statements.

I think you are cowards. You are totally afraid to take responsibility for your actions. You are incapable of seeing the wrong doing. You haven’t got the spine to apologize and commit to doing better.

Do you have any idea what it takes for people who have been abused to come forward and speak about their experience? No. You know nothing of courage or honour. The actions of the front office have been a pattern of ignorance and running from the truth.

And now, given a chance to seize the moment and apologize, you can’t even do that. You can’t look a parent in the eye and say “we’re sorry your son played with a man suspended for racism.”

You can’t look a GODDAMN Ring of Honour member in the eye and say “ we are deeply sorry your friends and teammates were hurt by the actions of the coach we hired to make you the best you could be.”

You can’t look departing season tickets holders in the eye and even say “we know why you’re leaving and we pledge to do better and hope you can return to us one day.”

So, as you seem completely incapable of a shred of empathy I think it is time for you to stop. Just stop pretending to be running a club. Stop pretending to know what you are doing.

I think it’s time we all gave up trying to give you pieces of simple advice. I don’t think you are capable of learning anything about how to run a club that is the pride of its community. I think you should all just go now.

All of you. Lenarduzzi, Lewis, Anderson, Nash, Kerfoot, Mallet.

Just step away. Sell the club to someone who cares. Retire. Find new jobs in some company where customer relations doesn’t matter.

You are actively hurting the brand by staying. You are disappointing us, alienating the city, destroying relations with local soccer. You are hurting victims with your cold responses to their pain. You are sapping energy and goodwill from us all.

So I’ll climb bleary eyed onto a flight on Saturday and rush to the stadium in time to give my support to our players with the @southsiders because the tickets are bought anyway and I love my friends and when we sing together we make a movement.

And that movement is unified against you now. I will keep going to matches because it allows me to make songs in support of @ciaramccormack and the unnamed and still silent ones who have been hurt over the years.

And I will sing for you all to leave and for us to be victorious over our opponents: which on Saturday is the Philadelphia Union, but which is ALWAYS sexism, racism, and abuse.

#AllOut