The City of Edmonton's Community and Public Services Committee's agenda for its April 18 meeting includes a discussion on "Support for Professional Soccer in Edmonton."

Jake Keegan: If you’re reading this article, know that, during the course of the interview, Tyson Farago said that he’d take you out for a “nice dinner.”  Hold him to it!

I’ve used a lot of that resilient and resourceful thinking since I came to the club almost two years ago. I’ve been very fortunate, our owners, Tom and Dave Fath, have allowed me to bring in new ideas and approaches. However, If someone had told me that within my first two years I would take over a struggling front office, work spend two seasons trying to get it the so hard to take it to the next level, then shut it it down and, just a few months later, be faced with possibility of  try to launching it all over again, I would never have believed them.

Beirne can say all he needs to say about not wanting CanPL to be compared to MLS. But he knows, deep down, that this will always be the first place fans will go to. There are three Canadian teams in MLS. MLS games are on Canadian national TV. And, of course, American fans will look at neighbouring Canada as it begins to unravel itself from the U.S. soccer system. They will ask: “If Canada can have single-table, why can’t we?” And we know the fervent anti-MLS factions that exists in the U.S. will use Canada as an example as they continue to fuel their self-destructive Soccer Warz.

Of course, as Beirne will be shaking hands, meeting and greeting, over the next two days, a lot of topics will be covered. We talked about a few Wednesday night.

The CanPL will debut in 2019. This letter offers some insight to why the Canadian Premier League will be so important to soccer families in this country.

But I worry that supporters groups will gather in same soccer bars, talking to the same soccer people, about how excited they are for the dawn of the CanPL. They’ll encourage the same people who bought season tickets a week ago to, well, buy season tickets.

If FC Edmonton, which left NASL at the end of the 2017 season, is to field a pro team in the Canadian Premier League in 2019, the club needs its fans to rally. It needs a massive ground game to sell season-ticket commitments. And, maybe, if the team is to survive, Wednesday’s night’s meeting of soccer supporters will be remembered as the Alberta Capital’s very own Tennis Court Oath, soccer style.

For months, I've heard the whispers. Off the record. Throughout the echelons of Canadian soccer.

Fath said his presence at the most recent round of CanPL talks was of an “exploratory” nature.