The owners of Edmonton’s professional soccer team announced Friday morning the franchise has ceased operations effective immediately.
FC Edmonton owners Tom and Dave Fath said the franchise is unsustainable in Edmonton.
“Our decision today is further reinforced by the continuous uncertainty being forced upon the North American Soccer League (NASL) by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF),” Tom Fath said.
“We sincerely hope the road to long-term stability can be found for the NASL as the NASL pursues the lawsuit against the USSF in the U.S. courts.”
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It’s been an uphill battle for the team, which struggled to gain a foothold in the sports landscape in Edmonton. At the end of the day, Fath said the final deciding factor came down to sustainability.
“The deciding factor is sustainability. We’ve talked about sustainability for some years now and the fact that we need to be sustainable and we haven’t really been moving that quickly towards it,” he said. “It’s very disappointing.
“We’re nowhere close to breaking even. We’ve talked about it before. We really need to be around about 9,000 people a game… I think we’ve only had a couple of sellouts since our inception.”
The USSF didn’t renew the NASL’s Division 2 status and categorized it as a Division 3 level for next season.
FC Edmonton began exhibition play in 2010, before playing its first official game in the North American Soccer League on April 9, 2011.
The team played 200 league games and made it to the playoffs twice in seven seasons.
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The team didn’t make the playoffs last season but did experience a 63 per cent increase in attendance from the previous year.
“Regardless of our decision today, we must express our sincere thanks to the players, coaches, loyal fans, sponsors and our very hard-working administration team for their commitment and dedication to professional soccer in Edmonton,” the two owners said in a statement.
“We also want to re-assure local youth soccer that we remain committed to our FC Edmonton Academy.”
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FC Edmonton joins a list of professional soccer franchises in the city that have folded, including the Edmonton Drillers and Edmonton Aviators.
In a statement Friday, the NASL interim commissioner commented on FC Edmonton’s decision.
“As we anticipate what we hope will be a favourable outcome in the U.S. Court of Appeals, we have been working diligently to build a strong foundation for the 2018 season. We are looking at making a number of changes to our business structure, and we are encouraged by the amount of expansion candidates that are ready to join the NASL,” Rishi Sehgal said.
“During this time of change, two of our clubs, FC Edmonton and the San Francisco Deltas, will be departing the league,” the statement continued.
“We are very appreciative of FC Edmonton’s contribution to the NASL as a founding member. As the club’s owner, Tom Fath was a tremendous ambassador for the league and his genuine passion for the community did so much for the fans and the people of Edmonton.”