Canadian Premier League 101

Introduction

Welcome

Canadian Premier League Questions Answered

Q. What is the CanPL?

• The new top division men’s professional soccer league in Canada.

• There are seven teams in the inaugural season. From the west coast moving east:
  • Pacific FC in Victoria
  • FC Edmonton
  • Cavalry FC in Calgary
  • Valour FC in Winnipeg
  • Forge FC in Hamilton
  • York 9 FC in the York region, near Toronto
  • HFX Wanderers FC, hailing from Halifax, NS.

Q. When will the season start? 

• There’s no official start date, but league commissioner David Clanachan recently said that it will be the last week of April.

• 14 home and 14 away. This would give teams 2 home and 2 away games against each team, and then four extra games. The four extra games are a bit funny – there were supposed to be eight teams in the league, and the Ottawa Fury FC were widely reported to become that eighth team… until they weren’t. That’s a story for another episode…

• CanPL
• Canadian Championship
• If a CanPL team won the Canadian Championship, they’d go on to CONCACAF Champions League.

• No playoffs!
• Here’s what Commissioner Clanachan had to say: “It does not include playoffs but I don’t want to give it away because it does take the schedule and make it very different and special. Not something that’s completely unique. It’s a format that is used in other parts of the world.”
• Regular Season Champs? Clausura and apertura? We’ll have to see…

• Both are Division 1 leagues
• MLS is in its 23rd season – much more mature.
• Much more money in MLS. Sebastian Giovinco is paid $7.1M USD a year.
• I’m expecting it to be closer to NASL or USL Championship in terms of on-pitch quality, at least to start.

• Yes! One for coaches and one for players. There will be a special arrangement for people acting as player-coaches so that a portion of the salary will count against each cap.
• The Hamilton Spectator reported that the average salary will be between $40k – $60k a year. The average MLS salary last year was $376K, with a median of $155k.
• Makes it a parity league. Anyone can win, and having the most money doesn’t guarantee success.
• There won’t be any designated players or salary cap relief mechanisms for the time being. In MLS, three players per squad can be designated players, meaning that they can be paid whatever the team wants to pay them and their salary doesn’t count against the cap. That’s how the Kakas, Sebastian Giovincos and David Villas of the world can get paid big bucks to play in the MLS. We won’t have that in our league. As far as I can tell, 100% of a player’s salary will count against the cap.
• My prediction is that, as the league matures, mechanisms will be created to incentivize teams to invest in their rosters in certain ways, be it to encourage the development of local talent, to bring in more talent from abroad, or what have you.

• See this link:https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianPL/comments/9xwkch/cpl_season_ticket_options/ for an awesome chart from Reddit User “LetBartletBeBartlet”.
• Season ticket prices per game range from $15 to a whopping $200 for the most expensive Cavalry FC tickets. Most other teams top out around $40 o $50 per game.
• Some teams are also giving jerseys as part of their season ticket packages, which is lovely.

• Clanachan says team roster size will be somewhere between 20 and 23, with a maximum of seven foreign players (which includes Americans).
• Come game day, teams will have to start at least six Canadians. After that, anyone can be subbed on or off without any restrictions.
• Teams will be able to build their rosters using players from five different categories (https://www.thespec.com/sports-story/8749807-cpl-players-will-come-from-five-pools-/):
  • The first four categories involve Canadian Players only
  • Foundational – For top Canadian talent who are already pros.
  • Up-and-coming – Players in local developmental leagues, third-tier European leagues, and the like
  • Home territory – Players from the region
  • Canadian Universities and colleges – A draft has already happened which gave teams the ability to pick players from various Canadian schools
  • Open Market – After the other four buckets have been drawn from, remaining players will come from the open market.
• So far, it looks like players have been drawn from each of these categories already. Rosters are far from finished at this point. It’s also not clear what rules are in place to dictate the constraints and requirements tied to each of these buckets. We’ll have to wait and see.
• The very fact that this player pool system is in place tells me that the league is interested in fostering well-balanced teams in terms of experience and that there’s a heavy emphasis on Canadian content.

• I expect the games to be entertaining! It’s not going to be the Bundesliga or even MLS. That’s ok. We’ll be seeing teams made up of quality professional footballers. It’s going to be soccer worth watching.
• My expectation is that the league will start out a bit scrappy, and will improve in quality as the teams start to gel.
• I’m thinking that we can expect NASL or USL Championship quality play.

• David Clanachan has stated that, eventually, there will be promotion and relegation, but given that there’s only one tier right now, that won’t happen any time soon. The goal is for that to be in place in 10 years.

• Canadian content
• Seeing Canadian players develop
• Exciting soccer in your home town
• It’s new! It’s not often that a new pro league starts up.

Outroduction

Credits

Featured post image courtesy of naosuki ii.

Outro music

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