Edmonton jouera en NASL en 2011 et jouera un calendrier amical en 2010. Ils joueront à Foote Field (et non Clarke). Le nom et les couleurs ne sont pas définies.
Le stade avec la piste bleue
Pris des Voyageurs:
- The working name is FC Edmonton. The name and colours (Green) (and probably will) change.
- FC Edmonton will be competing in the Voyageurs cup.
- The FC Edmonton ownership group attended the NASL founding meeting and signed up then and there. They were asked, but had no comment as to an expansion fee.
- Tom Fath is the President and part owner along with his brother Dave.
- Joe Petrone is the Technical Director in charge of Player Personnel and Coaching
- Mel Kowalchuk is the General Manager
- They are currently hiring staff for the front office and preparing office space.
- The plan is to play out of Foote Field, with the back up plan is Clarke. The NASL has a minimum seating of 5000 and a no football lines policy.
- No plans to play out of Commonwealth regularly (They did mention they have a verbal agreement for a friendly match to be played there)
- They will be a fulling playing member in 2011, but have plans to put together a team for 2010 and play several exhibition matches.
- The focus will be to find players from western Canada (Specifically Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta were mentioned), but there will be a "sprinkling" of Euro and South American players.
- Dwight Lodeweges called in from Holland. He has fond memories of Edmonton. Joe Petrone called him in December and he and Hans visited. He said it was "impossible to set up a new team alone" but that "Hans a.k.a. Henrick" was a "good guy who knows what he's doing".
- Dwight said he feels at home in Edmonton (and his wife is excited to come), and that Canadian players is really the focus. More clubs means more Canadian talent playing at higher levels which is good for the overall growth of the Canadian National Team.
- Dwight and Hans won't try to go against the Canadian culture, but will try to work with it to show the young players what it means to be a professional.
- Even thought 2010 is just a warm-up, they are taking it very seriously with an eye to the overall development for the team in place in 2011.
- With the Academy structure in place, it will be a good chance to develop Alberta players.
- The NASL phoned in as well to welcome Edmonton officially "back" to the NASL.
- They are very excited about the plans that Fath Sports has on building soccer in Alberta. They also commented on their ambitious academy plans.
After the official press conference, I scrummed in with the other local Edmonton media. TV reps from CBC, CTV, CityTV and Global were all there. As I didn't have a camera (or a cameraman) I kinda had to wait a bit but I did have a chance to ask both Mr. Fath and Mr. Kowalchuk on behalf of the Canada soccer supporters, the Voyageurs a few questions.
I identified myself as a Voyageurs representative (and signed the guestbook as such). I mentioned that we'd supplied the Voyageurs Cup that they're planning on competing for and then I asked them specifically about if they had any plans to engage the fans in order to be successful.
Mr. Fath basically told me that they had plans to engage the local soccer community and were planning on meetings with various groups. I mentioned that from the fans perspective a lot of the "success" of the clubs in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal was driven by hard-core soccer supporters rather than the "bring your kid's soccer team out" model. He said that Mel would have more to say about that, but that they were open to suggestions.
Mr. Kowalchuk said basically that they had a lot to do before they were quite there, but they had given it some thought. They were definitely looking at Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal as models to follow in many aspects, but that they were taking a "slow and steady" approach - preferring to grow into it. He said both Montreal and Vancouver worked hard for many years to become an "overnight success".
Other answers to the typical sports news questions:
Mr. Fath:
- Yes other soccer clubs have failed in the past, but perhaps other groups didn't use the right model (i.e. Aviators attempting to use the too big/too expensive Commonwealth Stadium)
- They want to start smaller, reach out to the local club systems and build a strong system for developing (western) Canadian talent.
- Didn't have any comment on and expansion fee or the clubs operating budget, but mentioned that they had presented their financial model to the NASL and it was agreed to by all members - many with a lot of experience in such things.
- Yes, in the future they hope to put together plans for a SSS, but feel they can grow first.
- No direct competition with the NHL hockey season, and that there were limited number of CFL games but they wouldn't be in direct competition for facilities.
- They believe they can have between 3500 to 5000 fans for games within the first few years.
- The NASL doesn't have (nor needs) a salary cap.
Dr. Kowalchuk:
- The NASL Drillers were ahead of their time. People had no idea back then who the quality players were (not exactly household names).
- Strong committed owners who are more like partners than owners.
