Toronto FC is no stranger to drama or power struggles over the years.
In 2014, the MLS club fired manager Ryan Nelsen and virtually his entire coaching staff in the wake of Nelsen’s public dressing down of then-general manager Tim Bezbatchenko. The dismissal, with unhappy star striker Jermain Defoe in the background, was effectively engineered by Bezbatchenko, who had summoned local reporters two days earlier to challenge his team “to take it up a notch.”
TFC was 9-9-6, one place out of the playoffs, when the axe fell on Nelsen, who had inherited a perennial loser of a franchise with a 45-88-45 career MLS record when he took over in January 2013 — eight months before Bezbatchenko was appointed.