Pro Woso by 2025: What we know. (Updated May 28th, 2024)
Who’s behind the league?
Who are the first five teams?
Who are the first four sponsors?
Who will play in the league?
What is the league’s format and start date?
What are the goals and expectations from day 1?
Who’s behind the league?
The company is called Project 8, and it’s led by Diana Matheson and her business partner Thomas Gilbert. The pair met at Queen’s University through the Executive MBA program. Gilbert shines as an operations guy, previously employed as a COO for multiple organizations.. Diana Matheson needs no introduction, but it’s worth noting that in the 2.5 years since retiring from soccer, she completed an executive MBA program and the UEFA executive course as well. That’s in addition to her bachelors degree from Princeton in economics she earned while competing in the NCAA. Diana’s vast women’s soccer experience and knowledge are complemented by her incredible passion and ambition, vision, and entrepreneurial spirit.
This has been a 2-3 year project for Matheson already, who along with her CanXNT teammates has advocated for professional women’s soccer in Canada her whole career. Since the death of domestic pro woso in 2012 (RIP Canadian USL W-league teams) the only other attempt was an unsuccessful Whitecaps NWSL bid. Carmelina Moscato reignited the conversation in 2019 when she was hired as the Manager of Women’s Football Development by Canadian Soccer Business (CSB). Matheson picked up Moscato’s work, propelled forwards by the Olympic Gold Medal and by the ensuing media attention the players decided to use to highlight the lack of pro opportunities at home.
If you’re wondering why now? The answer is quite simple. The upcoming years will be game-changing for Canadian Soccer the same way the last few years have already been. Starting with the Olympics and the Men’s World Cup participation, Project 8 can continue to capitalize on the momentum that will inevitably build around Canadian soccer over the coming years. Fans can look forward to the W Gold Cup and Olympics in 2024, potentially a Copa America for the men, a men’s World Cup in Canada in 2026, followed by the next women’s World Cup in 2027. Between those major tournaments and the rise of women’s club soccer abroad, and the reported creation of a women’s CONCACAF Champions League in the coming years, you have a feeling that soccer will remain front of mind for Canadians.
Project 8 Sports assembled.a great team of advisors, specifically Georgia Simmerling, and Nathalie Cook (Broadcast Strategy Advisor). Cooke’s inclusion brings the most credibility related to her long career leading two of Canada’s biggest sports broadcasters. Simmerling, the Director of Global Partnerships, is best known as a Canadian Olympic Cyclist who competed in the 2016 and 2020 games. In addition, she is the founder of AG Sports Inc, a female-powered Sports Marketing Agency. Of course, she’s engaged to Stephanie Labbe. A new but familiar name added to the team is Rhian Wilkinson, who left her coaching career behind to become a Player Pathway Advisor for the league. Additionally, P8 added a Director of Marketing in March 2023. Aisha Mayne, who has 10+ years of experience in marketing, already launched her first project, creating the ‘More than A League’ Series in partnership with Canadian Tire.
Last but not least, Christine Sinclair threw her support behind Diana and Project 8’s efforts, lending a hand with the big media push following the announcement. Initially on the fence about #nwslCanada vs Domestic League following the Olympics, she is fully supporting the domestic efforts now. Officially listed on the website as an Ambassador, her inclusion has been instrumental to getting the word out and to spur conversations behind closed doors. She is, after all, one of the most recognizable Canadian athletes of all time. Whether she’ll play in the league or not remains a mystery, but she’ll certainly be heavily involved in shaping it from day one.
Lastly, why Project 8? Well, the official reason was “8 teams” (though they will likely kick off with 6), but there’s no denying the tie to Diana Matheson’s jersey number and position on the soccer field. She was one of the best box-to-box central midfielders in her era, connecting offense and defense. That historic #8 jersey will always be connected with Diana Matheson and THE goal vs France en route to the 2012 Olympic Bronze Medal.
Who are the first five teams?
Calgary (YYC WFC)
Although the Calgary Foothills were initially announced as one of two founding teams, there have been some developments hinting at a completely new brand emerging. Notably, the Calgary tower was recently illuminated in purple and red, a nod to the brand launch coming on May 30th. They’ve also dropped several hints via Instagram teasers. Another piece of information that came out recently was Deanna Zumwalt’s involvement with the club. She lists “Chair” of YYCWFC on her linkedin. She also served on the Alberta Soccer board from 2023-2024.
The Foothills will likely still have natural crossover with the new club as the circles of elite women’s football are small in Calgary. Many of the clubs top players will have every opportunity to play for the new pro side. The Foothills have become one of few, and possibly the best hub for women’s soccer in the country over the past 4-5 years. You’re seeing this investment reflect in the youth National Team programs and in collegiate programs in the USA and Canada already. Soon you’ll see it on the senior National Team as well, especially if players like Mya Jones continue to reach new heights (drafted to San Diego in the 2024 NWSL Draft). In 2018, the Foothills entered a team into the American-based semi-pro summer league “United Women’s Soccer”. Since then, the program has grown enormously, not only dominating their Division on the field, but setting high standards off it as well with travel and accommodations (they travel as far as California). They’ve also successfully graduated players to professional environments in the USA, France, Iceland, and Finland.
If there was a group of people that was ready to take this leap, it was the Calgary Foothills crew. In an Interview in early 2022, Head Coach of the Women’s program Lee Tucker told us “we are ready now for professional women’s soccer in Calgary”.
Since announcing the club’s involvement in December of 2022, there’s been relatively little news or updates, but fans can rest assured that there’s work being done behind the scenes, and there’s already a supporter’s group to join.
2. Vancouver Whitecaps
The second ownership group is the Vancouver Whitecaps who launched alongside the league and Foothills in December 2022. Their women’s program is led by Stephanie Labbe (GM), Emma Humphries (Director), and Katie Collar (Head Coach). The Whitecaps are an MLS club with a significant amount of capital available to invest in the women’s game. Certainly, the $1 million franchise fee and $8-10 CAD budget (incl. $1.1-1.2 million yearly salary cap) required over the first 5 years is not an issue for a club of Vancouver’s stature. Interestingly, they will also need to rebrand their women’s program as MLS rules will not allow them to use the Whitecaps name and branding. Either way, it may be a good thing that they need to rebrand considering their controversial history of investment in the women’s game in Canada.
Vancouver reinstated their girls academy in 2015 and have seen players like Grosso, Huitema, and Riviere come through their program to make huge impacts on the senior national team. More recently, the academy has been dominant at the League 1 Canada level, winning the BC and Interprovincial Championships thanks to their many talented young players, like recent NT call-up Jeneva Hernandez Gray, who have a real shot at playing professionally in their hometown come 2025. The Whitecaps also run a network of girls academies from coast to coast, including in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. This has enabled them to create not only a vast pool of players but also a solid pathway to advance women coaches and technical leaders.
Of course, there is a difficult history in Vancouver related to the sexual assault scandals for 2008-2012 which still seem to loom over the club and surrounding area. The complicity around Bob Birarda and Robert Busby’s continued involvement in the women’s game is demonstrative of how those in positions of power continued to enable abusers to work with vulnerable women and girls. It’s also emblematic of problematic behaviour in the NWSL and across the world. The work to uncover the wrongdoings of the past and create a safe environment is underway though, with a number of actions taken by the Whitecaps including the addition of a full-time employee in charge of education and safe sport.
Regardless of the wrongdoings in the past, the Whitecaps will be judged on their ability to elevate their current women’s program to the next level. If they’ve truly learned from past mistakes, it’s promising, however, there will continue to be scrutiny of their safe sport actions moving forward.
3. AFC Toronto
While some folks may have been disappointed that MLSE (Toronto FC’s parent organization) did not invest in Project8 given the resources they have at their disposal, their omission opened the door for another organization to bring a team to Toronto. Initially announced as AFC Toronto City, they dropped the “City” from their social media handles recently and a source confirmed that the team will be called AFC Toronto moving forward. The women-dominated ownership group led by CEO Helena Ruken, COO Brenda Ha, and CMO Jill Burgin met through their involvement in the North Toronto Soccer Club, one of the best-run youth clubs in Ontario. The group raised the 1 million franchise fee among the 6 founders and has now reached the second “friends and family” stage of fundraising. Some exciting news came out recently when Olympian Andre De Grasse joined the group as an investor. Additionally, executive Sarah Jordan also joined the ownership group, as have BC-based Graham and Samantha Cunliffe.
AFC Toronto launched in April of 2023 despite not yet having branding and infrastructure in place, but we’re told their commitment to joining the league was a crucial step in securing sanctioning from the CSA. Lots of work has been done behind the scenes to essentially build a team (and the league generally) from scratch since then. This Spring, AFC Toronto will release their branding, they’ll sign their first player in the Summer, and start selling seasons tickets this Fall.
The biggest question, of course, remains the stadium. Between the three most viable options, we know that Varsity Stadium is essentially impossible for non-U of T groups to book between August and October due to the overlapping Usports schedule, and Lamport would need a major renovation including replacing the turf which is unlikely to happen before 2025 considering how slow the city moves. That leaves York Lions Stadium (4,000 seats) as the only viable option, at least for the inaugural season. Although the location is not ideal, the 45-minute subway ride from Union station should be manageable for many fans. The downside of course, will be that fans coming from less-well connected areas of Toronto or outside the city will either have to drive, or commute at least 1.5h each way.
4. Atlantic Women’s FC
It was accidental and hasn’t been officially announced, but on March 12th we found out that the fourth Project8 sports franchise will be based in Halifax. Three job postings (President, Chief Business Officer, Business Development Manager) conspicuously went up for an organization called Atlantic Womens FC claiming to bring professional women’s soccer to Halifax. Their website also went live, the handle of the Instagram account was snatched up, and so the Canadian soccer community went into full detective mode to find out more.
5. Montreal
Welcome to the party, MTL! It felt like it was always going to be Montreal after Diana Matheson made it clear that she wanted to have a team in Quebec. On May 28th, the news became official that investors Isabele Chevalier (as seen on Dragon’s Den) and Jean-Francois Crevier. Chevalier is the CEO of Bio-K, the probiotic supplement company, while Francois is the President at Crevier group, specializing in the oil industry. In addition to those two, Amy Walsh has been instrumental behind the scenes, as has Alouettes President Patrick Boivin. Interestingly, the duo are also hoping to invite community members to become co-owners of the club.
With the news breaking very recently, not many details have been fully worked out. In terms of stadium, it appears that the team will not have one permanent home in the first season, but rather use a few different venues. Stade Saputo , the CEPSUM and the Claude-Robillard sports complex have all been listed as options. While not ideal, the owners are focusing heavily on a professional training facility in hopes of creating an daily environment that will attract the best players. Naturally, being a french-speaking city will have its benefits as they can draw in Francophone players from around the World who may feel more comfortable speaking their own language.
Other items such as branding, ticketing, and more are expected to be released in the Fall.
Who are the first four sponsors?
It’s going to be important for this league to have revenue and cash flow from the offset. No matter how you slice it, it’s difficult for any sports league to make money from day one. Sponsors who are aligned with the cause of gender equity must be on board for long-term investment. It turns out sponsors have been lining up to support a cause like this for a while. Despite the disproven social narrative that “no one supports women’s sports'' there's been a mandate in place for sponsorship dollars to be contributing equally to men’s and women’s sports for a while, companies like CBC and Canadian Tire openly setting gender equity targets. The sad reality is that there hasn’t been anything to invest in before. With the notable exception being the new professional women’s hockey league (PWHL), there are no other pro women’s sports for Canadian sponsors to invest in. The fact that two major sponsors in CIBC and Air Canada are in since day one shows that sponsors have been itching for this opportunity. Finally, there’s a real way for these companies to help. CIBC, a major bank that has built credibility with Canadian fans, has already invested in other levels of soccer, while Air Canada should be able to help with the significant transportation challenges the league will face.
Since the initial launch, two more sponsors were added. Canadian Tire was announced on March 6th, 2023 in context of a multi-organization sponsorship deal including the WNBA, ESPN W Summit, TMU Sports Innovation Lab and Canadian Women and Sport. Doordash became the fourth founding partner in late April when they coordinated the launch of AFC Toronto.
Which players will play in the league?
One thing has always been clear - we have no shortage of potential players thanks to having the third largest girls’ player pool in the World, coming in behind the USA and Germany. In addition, we have enough highly talented players in spite of limited opportunities at home, as we’ve been known for consistently producing world-class players like current stars Fleming, Buchanan, Lawrence, Gilles, and Sheridan.
The reality remains that those top-class national team players are unlikely to feature heavily in this league, especially if they are younger than 30 and still in their prime years. That being said, you can expect at least one NT player (senior or youth) to feature on each of the teams through a “designated player” program that would see them paid appropriately for their services. So far, Sophie Schmidt, Janine Beckie, and Vanessa Gilles are on record saying they are interested in playing in the league (although they didn’t specify that timeline). Other potential options would be players like Allysha Chapman, Desi Scott, Shelina Zadorsky, Adriana Leon, Sabrina D’Angelo, or Cloe Lacasse, who will be over 30 by the time this league launches. The hope is that by including Canadian national team players they’ll attract fans to the league by leaning on name recognition in the community.
In addition to the one DP slot, each roster will have 7 international slots for non-Canadian players. Given a 20-25 player roster, that’s roughly 28-33% of the total roster, putting Project 8’s proposal in similar territory as leagues like the NWSL, D1Arkema, and the FA W Championship, in terms of international player allotment. If facility, housing, health, and salary standards are met from the beginning, and it’s a safe environment for foreign players, many internationals will be interested in coming to Canada. Matheson explained the importance of attracting top foreign nationals to help elevate the level of play early on.
Most importantly though, Canadians not playing on the national team will be making up the bulk of these rosters. Currently, we’ve got about 160 (up from 110 in 2023) other Canadians playing professionally around the world, and that number grows by about 10-15 each transfer window. The player pool has improved significantly over the past 5 years growing alongside global women’s soccer success, especially in Europe. As more women receive opportunities abroad, we’re seeing real gems come through. Players like Cloe Lacasse or Vanessa Gilles, for example, would have fallen through the cracks as recently as half a decade ago. Matheson’s goal is to bring 50% of the roughly 160 Canadians abroad home. In addition, hundreds of players graduate from collegiate programs in Canada and the US each year, and the goal is for those graduates to get at least a year of pro experience before P8 kicks off in 2025. If you’re interested in learning more about the other players abroad, check out our #wsoccerCa player maps.
What is the league’s format and start date?
First things first, due to the climate, the season will run from Spring to Fall (April to November, to be specific), to avoid the cold Canadian winters. Playing outside anywhere outside of BC in December through February is simply not an option. You can expect this new league to stretch about the same time as the NWSL, MLS and CPL seasons (March to October, with playoffs running into November). We’ve received confirmation that the inaugural training camps will take place in January 2025 and kickoff is expected in April.
Each team will play a 25-game regular season, playing other teams 5 times. This will be followed by a typical playoff format consisting of four teams competing in the semis, two advancing to the finals. It is unclear whether that will be in single-elimination matches or a home and away series.
Additionally, the league was originally meant to be split into two conferences (at least 3 teams each) - East and West, to minimize travel costs. However, we’re hearing that there will be four teams on the East coast and only two on the West, so the divisions are not as relevant. One exciting announcement was the prospect of two or more hub events to bring teams to a central location for 10 days or so. These hub events would also allow for community engagement, as well as opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing among teams.
The opportunities are endless for the women’s soccer community to get together to celebrate and create community, something that there has not been a dedicated space for before.
What are the goals and expectations from day one?
Many details will still need to be worked out ahead of a successful launch, but Project 8 is aiming high. They not only expect to match the NWSL minimum salary ($50,000 CAD/year), but be competitive with salaries worldwide. That being said, it’s not like women’s soccer players make loads of money, even in places like France and England. Regardless, their projected 1.5 million salary cap which is above what’s offered in the CPL. The league recently received a financial bump from CSA at their 2024 Annual Meeting of the Members. Project8 will receive $0.50 from every membership fee paid to the Canadian federation. Given roughly 740k members, this would amount to $350k per year.
Attendance is expected to be one of the principal revenue drivers in a league relying heavily on ticket sales and Gameday operations. Project 8 has modeled around 3,700 fans per match, on par with leagues like the NWSL in their first year of existence. Some may consider this a conservative model but the league will be looking to exceed that where possible and implement the hub events as additional revenue drivers and ways to increase visibility.
Quality and visibility are core tenants of this project, likely because players like Matheson and Sinclair have experience with poorly produced and promoted products. One of the learnings from the UEFA course Diana was a part of was that by not aiming high with up front investment, some leagues and teams capped their ability to grow. She believes that with enough up front investment, specifically 8-10$ million over 5 years, this league can compete with other top 10 leagues from day one. Now, that may be ambitious, but it’s a desperately needed ambition and approach to the women’s game. Women’s sports in general have long suffered from this phenomena of expecting to make money with bare minimum business, infrastructure, marketing, and human resource investment. By attracting sponsors with deep pockets like Air Canada, CIBC, Canadian Tire, and Doordash there’s a good chance Project 8 can deliver on the promise of building a Top 10 league.