When the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros shut down operations after their 2023 USL Championship season, eight years of history at the second tier of professional soccer in the United States went with them. The future of professional soccer in Southern Texas looked bleak. Around the same time, however, Jamal Fayyad, who worked with the now-extinct USL club, thought that soccer could still succeed in the region, but he didn’t think he would have anything to do with it. 

“I worked with the USL Championship Club, the RGV Toros, and there’s always been an appetite for professional soccer down here at some level, but I thought I was done working in soccer (after the team dissolved),” Fayyad remarked. However, a change in scenery showed him that he loved soccer too much to leave it behind. “I took a trip to England to watch second, third division clubs in markets similar to the Rio Grande Valley as far as population and size, and it was great to see these lower league clubs create an identity for the community, so it kind of got me inspired to bring something back home.”

Soon after that trip, Jamal would meet with local investors that would be interested in bringing some form of semi-professional soccer to the Rio Grande again with an emphasis on community. RGVFC was a club that was built originally as a Houston Dynamo FC affiliate, so their main duty was to help develop young players. This new club would be built on the supporters. 

However, while physical wounds can heal quickly, emotional ones, such as the shutting down of RGVFC, are harder to recover from. For many of the supporters of the USL team, they felt betrayed by the sudden disappearance of their hometown team. Fayyad knows that those fans won’t gravitate to his new team right away, and for him, that’s ok. 

“I'm not expecting them to gravitate towards us overnight. They were a devoted fan base, and I know we're going to have to win them over,” Fayyad said. “They cheered hard, they supported hard, they loved hard, so it's not going to be something overnight. So I'm hoping through our initiatives and things we do that we show them we're in this for the right reasons and we'll eventually win their support over.”

This new club, the RGV Red Crowns, will debut with The League for Clubs, a semi-professional league that will help them finance travel and other expenses. As for their jersey sponsor, they’ve gone with Capelli Sport, who also sponsors several Concacaf national teams, which helps to add a bit of legitimacy to the project. 

When it comes to the long-term future of this club, it’s evident that a return to the USL pyramid is a dream. But the RGV Red Crowns ownership group won’t force a move and repeat the mistakes that have hindered Rio Grande soccer in the past. Their success in the future is tied to the support they get, but if Fayyad and his ownership group are correct, then a vibrant soccer scene that has laid dormant in that region will finally awaken, and the club will get national recognition sooner rather than later. 

“This club was built by the Valley, for the Valley. And we're in a unique market where we have passionate soccer fans, not necessarily MLS fans, not necessarily just Liga MX fans, but we have passionate soccer fans that love the sport of soccer, and they love the big boys,” Fayyad said. “So my message to everyone, to the soccer fans specifically, is that we don't have to be your favorite club. We just want to be the club that you can always fall back on, go have a drink with some friends, or watch some soccer. “We don't have to be your favorite club… We just want to be your local club.”