The Canadian soccer landscape is going through a serious metamorphosis. The last decade has seen the launch of regional Division 3 leagues Première Ligue de Soccer du Québec and League1 Ontario in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In 2019 the Canadian Premier League played its first season. For male soccer players wishing to play professionally, these are encouraging developments. Prior to the existence of these leagues, the odds were significantly stacked against players trying to make the leap from youth to professional as the gap in playing level was simply too large.

It is a gap that long time soccer broadcaster and current Marketing and Communications Officer for BC Soccer Peter Schaad knows all too well. Over much of the past year, Schaad and his BC Soccer cohorts have been working steadily to address that issue for BC players.

There is no question across the country that we need this level of play. This is the level that bridges the gap between higher performance youth and professional football. There is just too wide a gap between these two tiers requiring another rung on the ladder.

The idea of a Division 3 regional league like PLSQ and L1O was included in BC Soccer’s 2016 strategic plan. However at the time the ‘Regional Tier 3 League’ as it was called gained insufficient interest from potential participating clubs and the idea was shelved. But the start of the Canadian Premier League breathed new life into League 1 BC and it was revived.

When we saw all this happening we thought, ‘Let’s attack this in a different way. Let’s engage groups and organizations that already understand that standard of play and let’s see if they’d be interested in a British Colombia only solution.’ So we started talking to these groups and they were really interested. From there we decided we were going to build a league using similar branding and roster composition guidelines as the Canadian Premier League but on a smaller scale.

BC Soccer revised their 2016 request for proposal and studied which communities and venues would be suitable for the league. As word got around interest began to grow. This eventually led to meetings with possible participants, the delivery of the new RFP to around 20 different BC groups, and a call for the return of each group’s proposal by January 31st of this year.

It is not an overstatement that the current moment is critical for League 1 BC. Whether the league has any chance of launching will be determined by the number and quality of the RFP applications BC Soccer receives by January 31st. According to Schaad, there is a requirement that participants field teams for both males and females.

We absolutely and positively owe it to our young female players to offer them the same environments and opportunities as the males.

Teams must commit to participating for a minimum of three seasons and there are other technical, financial, and community engagement requirements that participants must outline in their proposals.

But this is only the very start of the process, and for BC Soccer to move forward they need to receive a minimum of six qualified RFP applications. If this threshold has been met or exceeded, the proposals will undergo a unique grading process.

Groups that submit qualified RFP’s will be grading one another through a peer review and an independent panel of three will be offering additional grading of each application. The scores will then be combined, so the process is entirely at arms length of BC Soccer.

Following the review and grading, if a minimum of six participants have satisfied the criteria, the league can move toward kicking off with both a women’s and men’s division in May of 2021. According to Schaad,

We have to be very careful about how groups are selected. The success or failure of the league will depend on those who operate the clubs.

So although critical, this is just the beginning of the difficult but important work of putting together League 1 BC. While given both information and support from the Canadian Premier League and Canadian Soccer Business, BC Soccer is working on League 1 BC independently. If the minimum six required RFP applications are submitted by January 31st, there will be several months where information is scarce and patience will be required as the submissions are reviewed confidentially in the leadup to a potential announcement. If all goes well, we may hear sometime this Spring. Although cautious that there is a long way to go, Schaad understands the importance of the task in front of them.

This is all about giving young people as high a standard of experience as possible, and we would love to offer a ‘made in BC’ solution for semi-pro soccer in our province.

Article Summary:

BC Soccer requirements –

Participants must field teams for both males and females.

Teams must commit to participating in League 1 BC for three seasons.

Teams that complete an RFP application must outline their approach to meeting financial, technical, and community engagement standards.

Timeline and key indicators –

RFPs must be received by BC Soccer by January 31 st . BC Soccer must receive a minimum of six RFP applications.

. BC Soccer must receive a minimum of six RFP applications. Over the next weeks (and possibly months) the submissions will be graded using a peer review and by an independent panel of three. This review process will be confidential.

Following the review, a minimum of six submissions must be judged to have met the criteria.

If the above criteria are met, League 1 BC will be announced sometime in Spring 2020.

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