While hockey fans in Edmonton are probably tired of hearing seemingly-intractable wrangling about the future of the city's new home for the Oilers, the city's soccer fans have reason to be excited about another bit of sports-venue-related chatter.
FC Edmonton, founded in 2010, has played games in three different venues in its short existence (Foote Field, Commonwealth Stadium and its current home, Clarke Stadium), all three of which have been met with their share of criticism. But the team announced on Thursday that they are in talks with the city about a new, 10,000-seat, soccer-specific home for the Eddies.
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The full FC Edmonton release is as follows:
Representatives from FC Edmonton (FCE), along with members from the North American Soccer League (NASL), the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) and the Alberta Soccer Association (ASA) met with Mayor Stephen Mandel, city manager Simon Farbrother and the minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation today to discuss the soccer club’s future in the city.NASL commissioner David Downs, chairman of the board Aaron Davidson, CSA board member Derryn Donaghey and ASA executive director Richard Adams joined FCE owners Tom and Dave Fath and general manager Tom Leip in the meetings.
The biggest news to come out of the day-long conversations was the mayor’s inquiry into building a soccer-specific stadium in the city, which he put to his executive committee to establish the feasibility of a 10,000 seat, soccer-specific stadium along with a full-field indoor facility.
“There’s clearly a need for this type of facility in the city,” said FCE owner/president Tom Fath. “The outdoor facility is obvious. The indoor facility would allow us to work closely with the ASA and the CSA on its long-term player development plan. The mayor acknowledged it’s time so we’ll continue to work with he and the city, as well as the province, to get this done.”
Fath and Leip will have follow-up meetings with city and provincial officials immediately.
The meetings continue over the next couple of days. Tomorrow FCE will meet with council members and corporate leaders. On Saturday they’ll meet with members of the city’s soccer community.
Beyond the potential new home for FC Edmonton -- which would surely help raise the NASL team's profile in the city -- the indoor facility is an exciting prospect. As Fath mentions in the release, having such a facility in an environment such as Edmonton (and yeah, I'm talking weather here) would provide many more opportunities for youth and local teams.
And, yeah, a shiny new stadium could help Edmonton's chances of landing hosting duties for a senior national team game in the future (though, as some have suggested, Commonwealth will assuredly still be the venue of choice for the 2015 Women's World Cup, irrespective of the whateve progress may occur with this new stadium).
Now, let's be absolutely clear: This is the starting point. All we're talking about at this point is a potential feasibility study. That study could be done and come back with a clear message not to build the stadium. Even if it's feasible, there may be no funding. Or other problems. Or it could get started, then 86'ed. Et cetera, et cetera.
But, the fact that these sorts of discussions are even happening portends well for the continued development of the game in Edmonton, in Alberta and the country as a whole.
And who knows... at this rate, maybe FC Edmonton will get its new home before the Oilers do.