As soon as the words <i>"We have a football committee"</i> came out of Bobby Lenarduzzi's mouth at yesterday Whitecaps press conference, it was obvious that Martin Rennie's firing as Caps coach wasn't going to be the main talking point once the dust had settled.
The words certainly set tongues wagging, with confusion and questions rife in the aftermath. Perhaps a little bit too much, with some being far too hung up on the committee part of it all.
That's not to say that there aren't concerns, but there are far deeper questions out there about the football club as a whole.
Why did it all go wrong? Are the right people in the right positions elsewhere in the front office? What direction do the current ownership group want to see the Club taking as the Whitecaps get set to enter their fourth year as a MLS club?
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The committee consists of owners Greg Kerfoot and Jeff Mallett, COO Rachel Lewis, Director of Professional Teams Greg Anderson and Whitecaps President Lenarduzzi. Only one of whom has played or managed in the professional game.
Their role?
<i>"Any strategic decisions that are made go through that particular committee and Martin reports to that committee. So it's a coordinated approach that we're taking to those decisions."</i>
With interest piqued, he was keen to stress that the manager <i>"does have autonomy. Whatever players he wants, he gets."</i>
As the questions poured in, it was a point he rightly felt he had to get across a few times, placing blame for poor personnel decisions firmly at the foot of Rennie's door.
<i>"Once Martin was hired, he was hired to do his job. There was no interference from the committee. Lots of discussion. We had football committee meetings and lots of discussion took place, but ultimately it was always with the view that Martin had the final say."</i>
Such a set up is certainly likely to deter some coaches, especially experienced ones, from managing the Whitecaps but it's one that Lenarduzzi doesn't see as changing any time soon.
This is thought to have been a stumbling point for Frank Yallop in the past, but one that he is prepared to deal with to land his dream hometown job if the Caps act quickly.
If the coach has carte blanche for player decisions, there should be no issues at all, and that is what Lenarduzzi is saying will be the case.
<i>"When it came to player selection or player recruitment Martin always had the last call on that and so will any future coach coming in."</i>
Well, apart from Designated Players that is. That has to be approved by the committee.
<i>"The day to day activities of the coach and the cap, that obviously we all know what that is, the coach is responsible for that. If there is a decision to assign a designated player, then that would be over and above his responsibilities and he would have to make a case for that particular player and the committee would make decisions on that."</i>
I think the big mistake Lenarduzzi made yesterday was using the "C word". In many ways, there is little difference to how it is in the UK a club's board of directors. It's not some kind of secret society of decision makers that some are making it out to be.
The Board manages the day to day running of the club, makes decisions, stays out of team affairs and managers go to the Board with their wants and ideas and the board say yay or nay from a financial or logistical standpoint.
If you're an owner that's put a considerable amount of money into a team, you want to know what's going on and have some input on it. Better a hands on one that keeps out of team affairs, than one who meddles or one who is absent and doesn't seem to care at all.
However, as soon as you use the "C word", things sound different. Even the way Lenarduzzi said "the committee" yesterday just conjured up a whole lot of images in my head based on TV shows and films.
There's an almost sinister image you can conjure up, of smoke filled rooms, full of deep Italian voices. Or the more comical <a href="
Although it wasn't directly said yesterday, it was hard not to read between the lines that the canning of Rennie was not an unanimous decision of the five person team.
Which isn't surprising as fan reaction has also been pretty much 50/50 on the whole should he stay or should he go issue.
If "committee" was one buzz word to come out of the presser then "inconsistency" was the other.
<i>"Ultimately, the rationale behind the decision was the inconsistency".</i>
That early message from Lenarduzzi continued later in the presser.
<i>"It's not just this season, it's also last season as well. In both of those years, we started well and we tailed off towards the end."</i>
It's a message not lost on the players, as captain Jay DeMerit noted.
<I>"I do believe, especially in this league, there are a lot of inconsistencies on every team. Every team I've been on in my career, over a ten month season, people forget that that's a long time and there's going to be peaks and troughs throughout that year.
"I think the resounding answer to that is where it matters, where are you? And we're just like every other team this year where we had some good runs and some bad runs but I think if we had finished the season on a great run no-one would be talking about this, but that's not the case."</i>
It was also a subject addressed by fellow defender Jordan Harvey.
<i>"I've been in this league 8 years. Every team is inconsistent to a certain degree and you want to maintain a little less level of inconsistency. You want to be more consistent than the rest and that usually means you make the playoffs.
"We were inconsistent and I don't think we were consistent enough to make the playoffs and then changes will be made."</i>
For us, the fundamental questions to now ask are for the owners. And it's all about the "A word" - ambition.
What exactly is their ambition and long term goals for the Club? How happy are they right now with how things have played out since they splashed out their $35 million?
Three years into the MLS era, how much of that ambition has been met and what are the ambitions and expectations for next year under the new coach?
We put that to Lenarduzzi and it certainly made him think carefully about the answer. And it pleasingly seems to boil down to success on the field but achieving it with the help of homegrown players.
<i>"Well obviously we've fallen short of making the playoffs and winning the Amway Championship. They are the ownership's objectives, but we also want to establish ourselves as a club that develops players and those players graduate through to the senior team."</i>
There's a lot more questions that need to be asked to the owners and it would be interesting to sit down and do that at some point.
Just how content are they with every aspect of the football club three years into MLS? Head coach apart, are they happy with others in the front office executive? How relevant is Bobby Lenarduzzi's experience and skillset in MLS? Does there need to be another Paul Barber type figure appointed as the middle man between the coach and the committee? If there does, it needs to be someone who understand the modern game here and not how things are done in Europe.
So many questions to come out of one dismissal. There needs to be ambition. Martin Rennie's canning is part of the need to achieve that.
No matter who the next coach may be, that won't provide all the answers. A lot of them still lie with the ownership group.
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