For those who enjoy watching a sport colloquially referred to as the beautiful game, there may never have been a more exciting time to cheer on Canadians who play soccer than right now.
Next month, the Canadian men’s national soccer team will compete in its first World Cup in 36 years, and on Sunday, the Canadian Premier League final kicks off between Atlético Ottawa and Forge FC.
While fans of FC Edmonton may be disheartened their club has yet to compete for a CPL championship, that disappointment may pale in comparison to the increasing uncertainty of whether the Eddies will even continue to play in Canada’s top domestic professional league.
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Late last year, the CPL took over the operation of the Eddies from owners Tom and Dave Fath who founded the club in 2010. FC Edmonton was forced to spend the 2022 CPL season fielding players on loan from rival clubs while operating on a shoestring budget, resulting in a dismal campaign that saw the club win just four of its 28 matches.
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“I’ve never lost as many games as we lost this year in my entire career,” Eddies head coach Alan Koch told Global News this week as he reflected on the club’s season and what will happen with FC Edmonton going forward.
“That was the biggest challenge for me personally.”
Despite the club’s struggles in the win column, Koch said there were reasons to be proud of how FC Edmonton performed.
“(Early this year), one of the league members — when they presented the budget — said, ‘If you get to three wins, that is a massive success,'” he recalled. “We got to four wins, so we exceeded expectations in many ways I guess.”
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With a new ownership group still not announced now that FC Edmonton’s season is finished, Koch said he has inquired on developments in that regard but not received any news. Global News reached out to the CPL this week for an update on the search for a new owner but has yet to receive a response.
“If the club does get relocated or folds, or goes on hiatus or there is no team in this city, I think it’s going to be incredibly sad,” Koch said.
FC Edmonton first competed in the North American Soccer League until 2017. It did not play in the 2018 season but returned in 2019 as a CPL club in that league’s inaugural season.
Duane Rollins, a Canadian soccer insider and co-host of the Soccer Today podcast, told Global News this week he believes the shift from the NASL to not playing a season to the CPL has had a detrimental impact on the Eddies as an organization.
Rollins said while the Canadian soccer community waits and watches to see what the future holds for FC Edmonton, it would be a sad day for the sport in the country if the club ceases to exist.
“As it relates to the sport as a whole, Edmonton’s an important city to the country,” he said.
“It would be a true shame to not have a team in one of the biggest cities in this country.”
–With files from Slav Kornik, Global News