Rod Proudfoot, who held the post for the past three seasons, will be leaving the club at the end of the week.

But, having more teams in the southeast will only serve to increase the travel bill for the Eddies, currently the only NASL team in the Mountain time zone. Just with the four Florida teams, the Eddies are looking at four road trips of 3,000-4,000 km (one-way) each. It’s given wisdom that flying an NASL team and paying for hotels and meals costs north of $20,000 a trip. But Fath told me that, when the Eddies faced Fort Lauderdale in the playoffs back in the FCE’s inaugural season, booking seats and hotels last-second ballooned the costs to over $40,000 for that trip.

We don’t currently have a true Canadian professional league to call our own — but, what can we learn from those who tried to launch national soccer circuits in previous decades?

Colin Miller believes that the length of his contract is a message to the naysayers who think that FC Edmonton won't be around much longer.

Since an expansion of the stadium isn’t in the cards yet — and the team has broken the 4,000-ticket mark just twice this season — the fact that the NASL club continues to grow is a testament to the Fath family’s commitment to the game in Canada.

“Hopefully we’ll just have the four league games left plus Amway Canadian Championship games on the old turf,” said FC Edmonton General Manager Rod Proudfoot. “We felt that council was very thorough today. They had lots of questions. That’s fine with us.”

“For us, this (changing the turf) would be massive,” said Fath. “Last year, we had live national broadcasts on Sportsnet 360, through our own production company, M31. And one of the biggest concerns Sportsnet had was the lines.”

FC Edmonton veteran midfielder Chris Nurse has confirmed he won't be back with club in 2014. Nurse, who was named the team's MVP by his teammates and captured an NASL Player of the Month award this season, issued a statement to his followers and FCE supporters on Sunday.

“If you take a look at the NWSL right now, out of the Americans teams there, not all of them are in MLS markets. So, if it works for them, why wouldn’t it work in Canada? I don’t see it that way than an NWSL team has to be in the same city as an MLS team. What we want is committed, stable ownership, that ticks off all the boxes.”

FCE assistant coach Jeff Paulus said the search for a league for the team’s elite youth players is ongoing, and a return to the Alberta Major Soccer League hasn’t been ruled out. What is out of the question, though, is FCE’s Reserves joining any American-based league, including the PDL. The costs are simply too prohibitive.