Prairie Premier League set for spring launch

A new era of soccer in Manitoba will begin this spring.

The Manitoba and Saskatchewan Soccer Associations announced Jan. 27 the launch of the Prairie Premier League, a high-level amateur league that aims to fill the gap between the professional and club ranks.

Other provinces have similar leagues, with League 1 Ontario and Quebec joined by leagues in Alberta and B.C. in the past couple years.

The non-Quebec leagues in the same tier as the PPL will be re-branding to “premier” leagues as well starting this season as well. “It’s been needed in both of our provinces,” MSA executive director Héctor Vergara said in a Winnipeg Free Press interview.

“It’s a very important day in the sense that we’re moving down another path here, adding a path to the system — the player pathway — and, hopefully, now that we have two men’s and three women’s teams playing, these players now can move into that pathway and fill that gap and look into the future for their careers.”

Ava Temple, who played four seasons with the Providence Pilots soccer program, signed with Altitude FC, a League 1 BC team. Providence women’s soccer head coach Tory Walker said he was delighted to see a semi-professional league come to the province, hoping it would give graduating players another path to continue their soccer careers past the collegiate level.

The inaugural season in the PPL will feature seven clubs spanning Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario: FC Manitoba, the Bonivital Flames, Lucania FC (women’s only), Saskatchewan’s EXCEL Program, Forza Soccer Academy, QC United and the Thunder Bay Chill.

Two of the province’s biggest soccer associations are in the Eastman region, with Steinbach-based Hanover boasting massive participation numbers and the Niverville Force one of the only Manitoba Major Soccer League teams to regularly draw over 100 fans for home matches.

Neither group expressed interest in playing in the PPL’s inaugural season.

In a document posted to Saskatchewan Soccer Association’s website, they outlined plans to expand to 12 teams in 2027, with Manitoba and Saskatchewan each having an eight-team conference by 2030. Alongside more teams, the requirements for coaching licenses would rise.

“It’s not easy, because the criteria to be a pro-am club is obviously higher than what we normally see in an amateur competition in the province,” Vergara said.

“This requires teams to start moving in the direction of professional environments. Criteria will be higher. Expectations will be higher…. They’re incrementally going to kind of increase in the next two to three years in order for us to be able to have this league also be able to participate in a competition that leads to a national championship.”

League winners are entered into the Canadian Cup tournament, with the opportunity to play Canadian Premier League or even Major League Soccer teams. The league winner in the PPL will not be in the tournament in it’s first year.

Vergara said the hope is the PPL can act as a development path for players to move up to the CPL and Northern Super League.

With files from Joshua Frey-Sam