The NSL team announces Anja Heiner-Mølle as its first head coach, on the heels of an old Whitecaps controversy brought back to life.
The Vancouver Rise have a president, a general manager, logo and colours, a player pool and academy to draw from, a TV deal with TSN and CBC — and now, their first head coach in history.
The Northern Super League club — one of six teams in the fledgling Canadian professional women’s soccer league — is set to kick off in spring of 2025, with former Danish international Anja Heiner-Mølle tabbed to lead the team in its inaugural season.
The former Vancouver Whitecaps academy coach (2018-2020) returns to the city from Denmark, where the former Danish international played had been coaching the women’s U19 national team.
The 46-year-old’s playing and coaching pedigree is one of quality, and her detail-oriented manner, preference for a dynamic and attacking style of soccer, and tactical knowledge put her above the rest of the candidates, said GM Stephanie Labbé.
“From the first interview we had with Anja, I could see that our vision and goals really aligned well, along with playing style, the type of football we want to play,” she said, “as well as her experiences in working with a national team, working with a team that’s coming together for the first time, with these players coming from all different environments, and finding a way to build a culture and really get a team of players who have not played together to really click in a short period of time.”
Never one to pass on an opportunity, Heiner-Mølle jumped at the chance to return to Vancouver, which she said she loves as much as her home country.
“I’ve said ‘Yes’ all the time, and this is the biggest ‘Yes’ I’ve done,” she said. “It’s also the one that I really in my heart feel I’m so lucky to get this opportunity. So of course, yes, please!”
There are still many boxes to check before the season begins. They have to flesh out the coaching staff that will run things alongside Heiner-Mølle, come up with a ticketing strategy, secure sponsorships, sign players externally, and announce their initial jersey combination. On the latter note, the team — which has black, teal and gold as the brand colours — is working with sportswear brand Hummel to design the home and away kits, which should be finalized in March.
Then there is the minor detail of nailing down a home stadium.
Swangard Stadium in Burnaby appears to be the front-runner, where they would be co-tenants alongside the TSS Rovers League 1 team and its women’s arm, although team president Sinead King wasn’t ready to commit to the venerable soccer site.
“A stadium continues to be one of my hot topics, and I know everybody is eager to find out where we’re going to be playing,” she said. “We have made a proposal with the City of Burnaby to do a partnership at Swangard Stadium, and that would entail various stadium upgrades if we were to be there. We’re continuing to explore options with other municipalities for alternative stadiums as well, and we’re just making sure that what we land on is appropriate for our 2025 season, and the stadiums are functional for the needs of a professional league and a professional club and professional players coming into market.”
“We’re feeling good,” said King. “There’s obviously a lot that has to happen between now and April, but there’s also a lot that has happened already.
“I think all of us in the team joke that we wake up at night with a million things in our mind. But who doesn’t, with respect to their work?”
The Rise are a distinct and separate brand from the Vancouver Whitecaps, even if Greg Kerfoot is the majority owner of both teams, and the Rise roster will pull heavily from the women’s Whitecaps academy pool.
In 2022, former coach Bob Birarda was handed a 16-month prison sentence and eight months of house arrest after pleading guilty to three counts of sexual assault and one count of touching a young person for a sexual purpose, in connection with four players, then teens, whom he coached.
And around the time his house arrest was scheduled to end earlier this month, a separate case surrounding former Whitecaps coach Hubert Busby Jr. was also reignited when the Jamaican soccer federation reinstated him as coach of the women’s national team.
As the Rise try to build their new house on tainted ground, they fully understand there is no extricating themselves from the past.
“Yeah, it’s really important that we learn from the mistakes of the past … to help shape the present and the future and the landscape that we want to be building,” said King. “We’re absolutely cognizant and aware of those things. But equally, this is a new chapter and a new era, so we want to make sure that we’re getting it right. We want to make sure that we’re bringing the right people in who have those values and true to what we’re saying we’re trying to do.
“I think it’s a combination of being open to learning about the past, involving the right people today, involving people who were there in the past, who can educate us on what to do and what not to do, and really holding ourselves accountable to being better than we were before.
“We will have culture that aligns with a lot of what you see at the Whitecaps, but also a chance for us to build it out with the lens of women’s sports specifically. We’re one of two clubs to have a female head coach in the league. You’ve got myself as president, Steph as sporting director, also young females. So we’re definitely creating a place where we take leaps on people, and we want to see people succeed.”