Rob Gale: Valour Became ‘Inconvenience’ To Owners

Former Canadian Premier League head coach Rob Gale has chimed in on the folding of his former side Valour FC.

In classic Rob Gale fashion, his comments came straight from the heart without any fear of being too blunt.

The 48-year-old spoke with CBC today to share his thoughts on the club’s demise after seven seasons in Canada’s top flight. Gale led the side for two-and-a-half of its first-ever seasons before departing and finding success stateside with City Group and, more recently, the NWSL’s Portland Thorns.

“I gave four years of my life to that football club and organization, and everybody who knows me knows how much I wanted that to be successful. But I wasn’t backed or resourced,” reflects Gale. “I’ve had success elsewhere because I’m backed by organizations and people that know how to run football clubs properly.”

The pointed jab sends shade to Winnipeg Football Group, who have been long-criticized for failing to nurture the club an engrain it with the Winnipeg community like fans have seen with the CEBL’s Seabears, who arrived in 2022 but have found much more success in the city – though not without sustained effort from its owners.

“In that first year we gave eight Manitobans the chance to play in front of family and friends with the smallest staff, we lost to York competing for third spot with two games to go with a budget below the league’s salary floor,” said Gale in a separate online post, lamenting that things would eventually go downhill.

Valour ceased operations without having ever cracked a playoff spot. In seven years of play, it was a perennial underdog that finished dead last in two of its last three campaigns. This season saw them bump up to sixth place, though the club still finished twelve points outside of a playoff position.

“I think it’s really, really disappointing. Yeah, bitterly disappointed in the way it’s gone since I left the organization,” adds Gale, who says he and his former coaching staff worked hard to make a real connection to the community. In Valour’s final seasons, the rift between club and community seemed increasingly cavernous, as did the empty feeling to Princess Auto Stadium.

“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,” says Gale. “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.”

“Unfortunately, it’s clearly been mismanaged and left to go to waste.”

Valour failed to produce a profit in any of its years of operation, though Gale says he believes in year one they finished with the least debt out of any team. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that the league had covered the owner’s operating losses throughout the club’s final two seasons. Winnipeg Football Group then informed the league it intended to suspend operations following the 2025 CPL season, and with no investor jumping in, the decision was made to fold the club exactly three years after the league first lost a club.

Valour officially announced its suspension of operations at 2:00PM today, with players and staff being informed through a Zoom call just a few minutes before it all went public.

In conversations with some former Valour players, several former athletes agree with Gale’s take. An overarching theme regarding a lack of investment and support from Winnipeg Football Group was echoed through players whether they were with the club in 2019 or 2025, suggesting a chronic lack of investment, both fiscal and strategical, since the league’s inaugural season.

“We were never backed properly by our President and CEO, and there was zero accountability from a community board above him to want to make it work,” Gale stated in a separate post online. “We had zero support staff other than some Bomber people occasionally coming out who knew nothing of our sport, no performance staff, no analysts, nothing but Damian, myself, and Paddy on minimum salary plus the legend that is Tony Mazza [who] cared deeply for soccer in Winnipeg and Manitoba.”

Several players acquiesced that the folding of the club is something that felt ‘inevitable’ from their own lived experiences.

“I remember being there and only seeing one billboard and one sign in the airport,” reflected a former Valour player. Another player says he hopes the city can eventually find better owners who care about the club and don’t ‘use it as a tax write-off’.

To say the least, the internal views on Valour’s ownership are scathing.

Even from afar, Gale offered a glimmer of hope for destraught fans in the city he still hails as his hometown: he made a surprising revelation in that he is involved in active discussions to bring a Northern Super League side to Winnipeg, with the former Valour boss also hoping he’d love to see new ownership come in to help revive a CPL club, ‘bringing Valour back to what it could be’.

“We are Winnipeggers, and with proper owner we’d crush it – we could bring Valour back and NSL to our city, without you-know-who holding it to ransom, we can do anything.”

Suggestions of renovating the Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex have been preached by other sources, which both avoids the cavernous Princess Auto Stadium and reliance on the Winnipeg Football Group. Whatever does happen in the future, it’ll be a story for another day. If FC Edmonton is any indication, however, it’s that even if the CPL believes there’s a recipe for success in a market, there’s no telling how long a wait fans could be in store for.

For now, ‘bitter disappointment’ is the mood of the day.

Source: CBC, Facebook

Header Image Photo Credit: Canadian Premier League