The long-awaited news regarding League1 Ontario soccer coming to the region was finally announced Wednesday, but with a couple of glaring omissions from the original bid.
It was announced yesterday that 1812 FC would be the newest addition to the province’s growing professional soccer league. The local team’s bid announcement was made in June 2020.
For 1812 FC managing partner Andrew Weilgus, he's excited to bring high-performance soccer to the region.
“League1 Ontario is a tremendous opportunity for players to grow and compete at the highest levels of the sport,” Weilgus told BarrieToday. “It will certainly be challenging, but we are in this for the long haul and are looking forward to making use of this time in a productive manner as we plan for the future.
"We certainly expect strict safety protocols from the league, which we will happily follow," he added.
The team is scheduled to begin play for the 2021 season, but an official start date has yet to be determined due to COVID-19.
The Barrie club will join 20 other teams from across Ontario, from Windsor to Whitby.
However, there are some notable omissions from previous announcements about the new team’s management structure, such as the absence of Canadian soccer star Julian de Guzman as well as the region’s largest soccer entity, the Barrie Soccer Club. Neither are now a part of 1812 FC.
“Mr. de Guzman and (the) Barrie Soccer Club resigned their positions of involvement several months ago,” Weilgus said. “We wish them well.”
In a statement, 1812 FC management says the new club was “launched in partnership with Innisfil Soccer Club and in membership with the Huronia District Soccer Association.”
A former Canadian national team captain, de Guzman told BarrieToday in September 2020 that he hoped to “create and grow an appetite for soccer and discover the talent coming out of the region.”
De Guzman and Peter Raco, a former 1812 FC executive consultant, have now co-founded FC Barrie alongside the Barrie Soccer Club.
On Thursday, Raco said FC Barrie was looking forward to potential opportunities with high-performance soccer in Ontario and the Huronia region.
“We wish all clubs in our region the best. It is outstanding to see the game grow and we look forward to participating in this growth,” Raco told BarrieToday. “Stay tuned, there is more news to come.”
League1 Ontario commissioner Dino Rossi said he was happy to be in the Barrie area. Getting away from the GTA was “a priority” for the league in 2021, he said.
“We wanted to expand our footprint and go to where there was a lot of passion. I feel we did that this year after making a concerted effort to do so,” Rossi told BarrieToday.
In late January, the league announced four new teams — Guelph, St. Catharines, Milton, and Windsor — with possibly more to come.
That announcement ended up being the 1812 Barrie bid, Rossi said, which he added needed further inspection at the time after so many people involved dropped out.
“With the changes in ownership being what they were in 1812 FC, we felt it was better to take another look and take some time,” said Rossi. “We feel 1812 FC addressed the changes in their structure and are happy to welcome the club to the league.”
This will be League1 Ontario’s eighth season, though they cancelled play last year due to COVID-19.
League1 Ontario is a pro-am senior league. Founded in 2014, it began with a 10-team men’s division, which has now grown to 21 teams in the men’s division, and also includes a separate 14-team women’s division.
League1 Ontario serves as a stepping stone between the high-performance youth level, as well as elite amateur and professional levels of the game.
Owned and managed by Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) and sanctioned by FIFA through the domestic bodies of Canada Soccer and Ontario Soccer, League1 Ontario’s primary focus is the showcase and development of Canada’s future stars.
