Soccer plan for Clarke Stadium draws flak from football boosters ELISE STOLTE
Frustrated football leaders pushed back Wednesday against a plan to give Clarke Stadium to professional soccer to support a new Canadian premier soccer league.
“High school football still needs to be there,” the Edmonton Huskies Football Club’s Curtis Craig told city councillors. Edmonton only has four full-sized, video-capable fields that can handle high school football games among 28 teams, he said.
“We’re in a situation where there are not a lot of places to go,” Craig said.
Soccer team FC Edmonton and many in Edmonton’s soccer community are asking city hall to give Clarke Stadium to soccer as the primary user, help them build more seating and allow them to create their own food and beverage contracts in the facility.
Council’s community services committee heard from 18 people for and against the plan before voting unanimously to explore the soccer option. City officials will work with the Edmonton Eskimos to define how the stadium could operate, bring a capital budget estimate to council and look at what upgrades high school football might need at other artificial fields.
Clarke Stadium is essential to the Edmonton Eskimos as a practice venue, said Len Rhodes, president of the community-owned club. They’ve been forced to go all the way to Fort McMurray at times when it’s not available.
FC Edmonton owners Tom Fath said he needs to see the Clarke Stadium upgrades because they’re required to meet the Canadian premier league standards. But those are really geared to simply ensuring teams can be sustainable.
The Fath brothers have never been doing it to make money ... It’s been a gift to us and we need to be there to help them do that.
A successful team needs sponsorship revenue, beverage and food sales plus ticket revenue to break even.
Tom and Dave Fath founded the team in 2010 and lost an estimated $1 million a year while competing in the North American Soccer League. That league is on hiatus this season.
But they believe competing in a national league would give the team a chance to be sustainable.
Already, the 2017 season was FC Edmonton’s best on record, with an average of 3,500 fans per game. Playing Winnipeg and Calgary would mean creating regional rivalries, which builds fans and excitement, said general manager Jay Ball: “It is so much easier to hate those teams.”
The team is on a membership drive. Fath said they’ve already sold more $40 memberships in support of the team playing nationally than they had seasons tickets holders last year.
“The Fath brothers have never been doing it to make money,” said Ward 8 Coun. Ben Henderson. “They’ve been doing something remarkable for our community . ... It’s been a gift to us and we need to be there to help them do that.”
BEN HENDERSON