Ottawa Fury officially suspends operations
Fury FC soccer franchise suspends operations due to sanctioning impasse
Ottawa Fury FC general manager Julian de Guzman sat with his face in his hands, fighting back tears, in a media room at TD Place late Friday morning.
Angry. Sad. Betrayed. A bit of everything. The people behind the Fury FC soccer franchise say they’re running the gamut of emotions with Friday’s official announcement that the team has suspended operations.
Fury FC has been unable to obtain the required sanctioning from its governing bodies to participate in the United Soccer League (USL) Championship in 2020. Unlike a year ago, when they were ready to take the battle to a Court of Arbitration for Sport, Fury FC has decided to step away. And good people like de Guzman, who spent time earlier this week cleaning out apartments and houses of departing players, will be gone.
The loss will be felt by many more, including Fury FC president John Pugh, who got the thing off the ground for the 2014 season and put plenty of sweat and equity into the venture. Players like Carl Haworth, who became a face of the franchise, won’t soon be forgotten. Then there is a loyal fan base that all of a sudden doesn’t have a team.
“It’s going to be a real sad day around here,” said Mark Goudie, president and CEO of Fury FC’s parent company, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group. “Our governing bodies have been unable or unwilling to give us the permission to play in our league — the USL Championship — next season.
“To avoid a repeat of last year, we started the sanctioning process back in March. Here we are, eight months later, with no sanctioning and no indication as to when or if we might hear from CONCACAF or the Canadian Soccer Association on our sanctioning. It’s apparent to us and it’s apparent to the USL, which took up our case and our cause with CONCACAF and U.S. Soccer, that there’s no intention to address the Fury sanctioning issue and, instead, intent on behalf of all our governing bodies to simply drag their feet and run us out of time.
“The USL has told us they need to move on with their 2020 schedule. They had set a Nov. 1 drop-dead date and we understand that.”
All pro soccer clubs in Canada need sanctioning from Canada Soccer, the United States Soccer Federation and CONCACAF to play in a league based in the U.S. In 2018, the year preceding the inaugural Canadian Premier League season, there was a strong desire for Fury FC to join the CPL. Fury FC decided to remain in the USL.
Fury FC submitted a multiyear sanctioning application to Canada Soccer on April 25. Although the multi-year request was rejected, the club got confirmation of a one-year sanction for 2020 from Canada Soccer on May 17, Step 1 in the threephase approval process. Canada Soccer waited until late September before forwarding the Fury submission to the U.S. Soccer Federation and CONCACAF. There was no indication that sanctioning would be granted and no sign of a timeline.
“It’s very disappointing listening to Mark and John announce this and it’s starting to hit me,” de Guzman said. “The job was to put Canadian soccer in a better place, but it’s a very disappointing day for soccer in Canada, for soccer in Ottawa. It’s just really hard to digest at this moment.”
Fury FC will weigh its options, which could include relocation of the club to the United States.
“What we said is we’ve suspended operations. We need to take some time here and figure out what might be next as it pertains to soccer,” Goudie said.
Fury FC was founded in 2014 as a North American Soccer League expansion club. It played the first half of that season at Carleton University as construction was completed at TD Place. In 2015, the team won the NASL Fall Season title and advanced to the league final against the New York Cosmos, losing 3-2.
In 2017, Fury FC moved to the USL and this past season played host to its first USL Championship playoff match. Over its first five years of operation, Fury FC ownership spent more than $15 million to cover startup costs, two league entry fees and operating losses. This season was the team’s best financially.
Asked why Fury FC didn’t join the CPL, Goudie said, “We saw ourselves potentially being in the CPL someday, but we felt like it should be on our terms and we should have the right to be able to choose what league we play in — if we were going to move to the CPL, it would be our decision.
“When we signed our USL franchise agreement, we included a clause that gave us an out to go and join the CPL. So we envisioned that was a possibility and probability for us sometime down the road. The CSA was aware of the clause, the terms of the clause — we needed to provide our league with a year clean notice to be able to leave. That means for 2020, we would have had to give notice before the CPL even came into existence. We would wait to see how things unfolded and if we felt it was in the best interests of professional soccer in Ottawa, we would make that move.” tbaines@postmedia.com