A month ago this lead would have been more generous. It would have pointed to a stellar playing and coaching career and spoke about how much he had contributed to the game.

Eventually it would have reached the same conclusion, but it would have been with regret. A suggestion that a humane option be presented to him would have been made.

That’s off the table now. Now, 40 years of good will are out the window. There will be no punches pulled.

Bobby Lenarduzzi must be fired. Not given an opportunity to “spend more time with his family,” or “move into a consulting role,” or any other way teams let long time servants save face when the time comes to move on.

No, he needs to be canned. Sacked. **** canned. Axed. Shown the door. Given a pink slip.

Fired. Yesterday.

As the most public face of the Vancouver Whitecaps and the person who was in charge when the alleged abuses (abuses that the Whitecaps internally, if quietly, decided were real at the time) and when the decision to hire a youth coach who was found to have thrown a banana at a black player, he’s got to go.

It’s no longer a debatable point. It’s quite literally the least that the club can do.

To be clear, this isn’t about the scoreboard, nor should anyone muddy the waters by bringing results into this.

As the leader of the organization, Lenarduzzi oversaw a toxic work environment that legitimately has caused harm to people. That is inexcusable. Maybe a way forward could have been found when this first came out. Had Lenarduzzi and the team immediately apologized and agreed to make real changes to prevent it ever happening again then…maybe.

But, they didn’t and they somehow made a terrible situation worse. So, the time for niceties is over.

Bobby’s got to go.

It won’t fix it. There’s a hell of a lot of work that needs to happen after he leaves, but that work doesn’t start – can’t start – until he’s gone.