The report from TSN said the team is hoping to join the league for the 2021 season.

Earlier in the day, TSN’s Dave Naylor reported that the group had reached an agreement with the CFL for a three-step process to secure the league’s 10th team, “with the details and conditions of the first step laid out on paper.”

“They’ve advanced their case. They’re more definitive, I think, about where they want to go, although I think it’s not 100 per cent,” Mayor Mike Savage said Tuesday evening.

Regional council got an in camera update on Tuesday afternoon from Anthony LeBlanc and Gary Drummond, of Maritime Football Ltd., the group working to bring a Canadian Football League team to Halifax.

HALIFAX — After a closed-door meeting, the mayor says a bid to bring professional football to the city is “just outside field goal range,” and he hopes further discussions will happen in public.

In an email, CFL spokesperson Lucas Barrett said: “I can confirm that talks have taken place however there is no ‘deadline.’ ”

“I think the CFL are very excited about coming potentially to Halifax, but again, that’s never been the issue,” Savage said. “The issue is where are they going to play?”

Savage said the group has a location in mind for a stadium, but he wouldn’t say where it is. He did suggest that the municipality would provide some kind of financial assistance if council approved the plan.

“We haven’t got the numbers, but stadiums aren’t free,” the mayor said.

“The question is, is there a way the city can contribute to that without digging deep into capital? Maybe that’s the way to go, but that’s not the model they’re looking at,” he said.

“They’re looking at more of a model — and I think that they’ve been public about this — that is offset against future potential tax revenue in the area they want to build.” It’s a similar model to the Halifax Convention Centre, into which council invested millions of dollars and was supposed to pay for itself through property taxes.