Article content continued

Fath said FC Edmonton will not be joining the United Soccer League, which retained the Division 2 status it was granted on a provisional basis last year.

The proposed Canadian Premier League is a possibility, but there is no definite startup date for the national circuit.

“We will not go to the USL and we’re not going to the MLS, those are really the only two other leagues,” Fath said. “As far as the CPL, I think the CPL is exactly what Canadian soccer needs moving forward.”

As two successful local businessmen, Tom and Dave Fath were originally approached by former Edmonton Trappers president Mel Kowalchuk about investing in a professional soccer club.

Despite the previous demises of professional soccer in the city, which included the Edmonton Drillers of the original NASL, the Edmonton Eagles, the Edmonton Brickmen and the Edmonton Aviators, the Fath brothers agreed to form FC Edmonton, knowing they were unlikely to ever turn a profit running a pro team in the city.

The two agreed to bring back professional soccer for the benefit of the community.

“That was absolutely 100 per cent of the reason,” Fath said. “I didn’t ever play soccer. I didn’t really ever watch soccer and I’d never been to a pro soccer game in Edmonton. We felt confident that it was a good way to give back to the community, that it had potential to make a difference.”

The brothers are believed to have lost upwards of $1-million per season running FC Edmonton and struggled to gain support from the city and the local amateur soccer community. The club did its best to refurnish Clarke Stadium with the Fath brothers installing grandstands on the east side of the venue out of their own pockets to bring the capacity to 5,000.

“We needed a stadium twice the size to be sustainable,” Fath said. “It’s not just the USSF and their decision about Division 2, and I know that fight is still in the courts, but it’s also about the fact it has to come somewhere close to making sense to be sustainable and it hasn’t got there.”

E-mail: dvandiest@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @DerekVanDiest