Marc Dos Santos

San Francisco Deltas coach Marc Dos Santos said Sunday that he was excited that the still-under-construction Canadian Premier League has received the green-light from the Canadian Soccer Association.

But, Dos Santos, who has four Canadians signed with the Deltas and is one of the biggest boosters of the Canadian game, reiterated some of the warnings he’s made earlier about the Canadian Premier League. In the past, when he was coach of the Ottawa Fury, he said that he feared that a Canadian league would only be semi-pro, with players needing part-time jobs to supplement their playing careers. He worried that practices would need to be fitted around players’ day jobs.

On Sunday, he said if the league is done right, it will be a great benefit to the development of soccer Canada.

The “if it is done right” message came over loud and clear.

“I just pray and my message is that the owners around the teams take it seriously. Because, it’s nice to call it Canadian Premier League, but a premier league has to have good training sessions, good infrastructure, players put in the right conditions to succeed.”

He said that the Canadian Premier League “cannot be an amateur league that we call professional. We have to be hard and very demanding on that. If the ownership groups are serious about it, I think it will give opportunities to more and more Canadian players to play at the highest level possible and it can only help the game in Canada.”