A wild journey from whistleblower to team CEO
Toronto Star|March 24, 2024
Opening night, Friday Feb. 16, and the realization of a lifelong dream for Ciara McCormack. She’s actually doing the damn thing, running a European soccer club. But here, in Ireland’s third-biggest city, reality has always had a way of catching up with dreams.
JOE CALLAGHAN
A wild journey from whistleblower to team CEO

So, for the new CEO of Treaty United, North Vancouver born and bred, a dose of Limerick reality arrives, wrapped in shiny plastic. To be absolutely accurate, there aren’t any wrappers left.

“You want to capture the behind- the-scenes reality at Treaty United?” McCormack says. “The home opener, it was around 7 p.m. and someone shouted over, ‘Oh my god, there’s not enough stock in the tuck shop. There’s been a chocolate bar robbery, basically. We have nothing!’

“Everyone is busy. Myself and Marie Curtin, our COO, are the only free hands, so we shoot down to Arthur’s Quay, the shopping centre. (We) sprinted into the dollar store and said, ‘We need every sweet thing you have!’ We cleaned out this dollar store, spent 360 euros (about $530). We put all this chocolate in around the kids’ car seat in the back of Marie’s car and speed back up to the game to stock up the shop. By now it’s almost 7:45 p.m., the game is kicking off and the CEO and COO are zooming into the car park with a car weighed down with chocolate bars and sodas.

“We pulled in and looked at each other and said, ‘Holy s---! There are so many people here’. We actually broke the (attendance) record. It was times three the previous (one). It’s only little moments like that where you finally look up and think, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ ”

It is amazing. Every last bit of it. Treaty United 2024 represents something groundbreaking. Or a lot of things. 

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