By Canadian Press

Whitecaps change management structure, removing president from current role

Aug 16, 2019 | 11:53 AM

VANCOUVER — Longtime Vancouver Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi is out of his current role after the club announced it will begin a search for a sporting director.

The Major League Soccer team, which sits last in the Western Conference standings, says Lenarduzzi will stay with the Whitecaps as a club liason.

The Whitecaps are starting a global search for a sporting director to lead the technical direction of the club. The sporting director will report to ownership, thereby eliminating the role of president.

Whitecaps fans began calling for Lenarduzzi to be dismissed this season as the rebuilt team failed to produce results on the field, tying a club record five-game losing streak in July. Vancouver sits last in the West with a record of 5-12-9.

Earlier this year, he also came under fire for how the club navigated an alleged decade-old abuse scandal with a Whitecaps women’s team.

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Doctored images of Lenarduzzi wearing a clown nose and plastered with the hashtag #BobbyOut were spotted around B.C. Place during some games this season.

Lenarduzzi, 64, has spent more than four decades with the ‘Caps, starting as a player in 1974, then serving as the team’s coach, director of soccer operations and general manager before being appointed president in 2007.

The Vancouver native is a fixture in Canada’s soccer community, having made 47 appearances with the national squad, including stops at the 1984 Olympics and 1986 World Cup. He also coached the team between 1992 and 1997.

Lenarduzzi had already been installed as the Whitecaps’ president when Vancouver was awarded the second Canadian MLS franchise in 2009.

He said at the time that he believed the team would bring unprecedented soccer glory to the city.

”I thought I had seen the best soccer here in the late 70s and early 1980s,” said Lenarduzzi, who was part of the Whitecaps team that won the North American Soccer League championship in 1979. ”I honestly didn’t think that there would be an opportunity to recapture what we had back then.

”But it is my firm belief now, that when I see what is taking place with MLS, the best is definitely yet to come.”

While the ‘Caps have seen some success since entering the league in 2011, the club did not qualify for the playoffs in five of nine seasons of MLS play. The team has never made it past the conference semifinals, last reaching the milestone in 2017 when the Seattle Sounders ousted the Whitecaps from contention.

The squad has also struggled in national competition, winning the Canadian Championship just once since the tournament’s inception in 2008.

This year Vancouver was ousted from the race in the quarterfinal round, losing to Calgary’s Cavalry FC of the first-year Canadian Premier League.

Whitecaps fans seemed to tire of the club’s lack of success and its response to allegations that a former coach of the women’s team had bullied, harassed and abused players more than a decade earlier.

The team’s co-owner, Jeff Mallett, finally spoke about the controversy and offered victims an apology at the beginning of May, more than two months after the allegations surfaced.

Frustration among fans was apparent at Whitecaps home games, with attendance dwindling to a season-low of 16,138 on May 15. Some in the stands watched the games with paper bags over their heads.

Some fans have blamed the team’s disappointing performance on the club’s reluctance to spend on top talent.

Data released by the MLS Players Association shows none of Vancouver’s players received more than US$1 million in guaranteed compensation this season. The top earner was striker Fredy Montero, who brought in $968,000. He has six goals and two assists for the ‘Caps this year.

The club received an influx of cash by selling a home-grown player to one of the world’s biggest clubs last year.

Lenarduzzi was involved in the record-breaking deal that sent teen midfielder Alphonso Davies to German Bundesliga giant Bayern Munich, and the then-president said the money would be invested back into the sporting side of the club.

He also promised that some of the cash would go toward developing other young talent.  

But even before the Whitecaps entered MLS, Lenarduzzi said he wouldn’t be pushed into signing a big-name player to make headlines. The president said he’d opt instead to build a team and perhaps use a designated player to fill a need.

”My belief is we need to establish a solid core of players,” he said in 2010. ”If there is an opportunity to get the DP in, it goes beyond does the DP sell tickets for you. Hopefully you sign a DP that can be a great role model.”

During his time as the Whitecaps’ president, Lenarduzzi oversaw five different coaches for the MLS squad.

The most-recent hire was Marc Dos Santos, a 42-year-old Montreal native who was brought on board in November 2018 with the hopes that he could build an identity around winning long term.

“For us as a club, we wanted someone who was like-minded,” Lenarduzzi said at the time. “We believe that we can win a championship and we wanted someone to come in and feel the same way.”

The Whitecaps host D.C. United on Saturday night.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press