Save the Caps
The city of Seattle is no stranger to the reality of losing a beloved sports institution, and we find ourselves watching as MLS threatens to relocate a team, yet again.
The relocation of any team in any league is an affront to the fanbase of that team, but to do so while choosing to use the term “Club” reveals a tense juxtaposition. For much of their origin, the forerunners of these clubs were community organizations, staffed, run, and built together by people with a shared goal. To use terminology rooted in that grassroots community-built togetherness, while entertaining the abandonment of the very community you claim to represent threatens the health of the relationship between league, clubs, and fans.
The Vancouver Whitecaps are an institution in North American soccer, and their history is inextricably linked to ours. Our clubs began together in 1974, and have sharpened each other for over fifty years and today, the future of that rivalry is frighteningly uncertain. This rivalry dates back further than any other in MLS, to the founding of the clubs in 1974 in the NASL to through the WSA, the USL A-League, and into MLS, and most recently we’ve found ourselves competing also in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. While we love to hear the lamentations of their supporters, we want it to be because of another crushing defeat by the Sounders, not the relocation of their team.
Emerald City Supporters stands in solidarity with Vancouver Southsiders, and all Whitecaps fans, in demanding that the Whitecaps remain in Vancouver, BC. We urge the ownership of MLS, and more specifically our own majority owner Adrian Hanauer, to fight to keep the Caps where they belong, at home in Vancouver, BC.
