Ownership group seeking to bring pro soccer team to Saskatchewan
Former Rush executive betting fans will back new Canadian Premier League
Lee Genier helped sparked a lacrosse-stick boom in Saskatoon. He figures there’s room here for professional soccer, too.
Genier, who left his post as Saskatchewan Rush president in February, was light on details Wednesday — but he did confirm he’s part of a group seeking to bring a Canadian Premier League team to Saskatchewan.
It might be Saskatoon, he says, or maybe Regina. And it would likely require the building of an expandable 7,000 to 8,000-seat stadium. The league itself is still just a concept — it received formal ratification from Canada Soccer at meetings in Whistler, B.C., this past weekend, and Genier was there checking everything out.
“Right now, it’s completely exploratory,” Genier said. “But exciting in the same respect.”
Genier, a longtime executive with the Calgary Stampeders, moved to Saskatoon with the Rush when they relocated from Edmonton prior to the 2016 National Lacrosse League season. The team, now in its second season, consistently plays to sellout home crowds of 15,000.
“I have a real gut feeling,” Genier says. “Just given the numbers in amateur soccer in this province ... when I came here (with the Rush), there was 1,500 people involved in lacrosse across the province. There’s 30,000 in soccer. I’m not a rocket scientist, but that says there’s a huge interest.”
Genier said there’s a local component to the prospective ownership group, but he wouldn’t go into further details on who he’s working with.
“There’s a lot of moving parts to this,” he said during a stopover in Saskatoon, where he’s staging a series of meetings.
As the Canadian Premier League labours to get off the ground, it has two confirmed teams — one in Hamilton and the other in Winnipeg. The former team is headed up by Hamilton Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young, and the latter will be tied in with the Winnipeg Football Club, which operates the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The CPL, which expects to launch in 2018 or 2019, currently employs just one person — Paul Beirne, who was instrumental in launching Toronto FC’s foray into Major League Soccer.
The proposed league, Beirne said Wednesday, is designed in part to strengthen the men’s nationalteam program, which is a nonfactor on the world stage.
“We’re going to create a professional soccer industry that currently exists on a very small scale in this country,” says Beirne, who is the CPL’s project manager. “The outcomes will be a league that lasts for another 100 years, and a Canadian men’s national team program that rockets up the international charts. Right now, we’re 108th in the world. We’re the highest- GDP nation in the world without our own pro league. It’s just shameful. We challenged each other. Instead of saying why we can’t do it, we asked ‘what will it take in order to make it work?’ ”
Canada Soccer, which unanimously endorsed the CPL, hopes a spike in interest stemming from Canada’s joint World Cup bid for 2026, alongside the USA and Mexico, will bolster the league’s fortunes.
The league currently has no office, and just one employee, but Beirne expects that to change in the near future. He says it’s too early to outline team budgets and pay-scales, but that a 2018 start date is plausible.
The CPL says it’s received expressions of interest from 10 locales across the country, including Genier’s Saskatchewan group. And if not everybody’s ready to go at the same time, Beirne says a staggered growth strategy would work just fine.
“I knew we were going to get support and I knew it would be loud,” Beirne said of the feedback he’s received. “What surprised me was how far and wide it’s coming from. Every city in the country and every corner of the country, there is strong vocal and emotional support for this. This is a really emotional thing for a lot of people. They love the game, and they love their country. They want nothing more than to cheer for Canada at a World Cup. If we do our jobs right, we’ll be able to deliver that on a regular basis.”
As for Genier, it remains to be seen if he and his group can successfully wrangle a pro soccer franchise for Saskatchewan.
“We’re doing our due diligence across the province,” he says.
“I’m confident, from what I’ve seen. Wherever we end up, or if we do end up, this will be a whole provincewide thing. This is going to be a Saskatchewan team. There’s a lot of working pieces to put all that together.”