Perhaps no one was happier to have CPL football back in action this past weekend than Mark Noonan.
Less than 24-hours before kickoff in Ottawa, the CPL commissioner was still busy with his beginning of season press tour. Speaking to The Wanderers Notebook Friday morning, Noonan said he had just recorded his one-on-one interview for OneSoccer with host Andi Petrillo in addition to countless interviews for print, radio and online consumption across Canada.
To put it mildly, he’s been a busy man this off-season to try and make the 2024 campaign the most successful in the CPL’s short history. There’s been a lot on his plate, ranging from expansion talks to attendance projections to acclimating a new ownership group in Game Plan Sports, who purchased York United in November. But one topic that has taken up a lot of the commissioner’s time — and that of fans of every stripe — is the league’s salary cap. Noonan has been sure on his press tour to let everybody know the league is serious about policing its clubs and he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.
“It’s my job and my staff’s job to make sure everybody has a level playing field,” he told The Wanderers Notebook. “There’s lots of conspiracy theories out there, there’s a lot of folks who like to point their fingers at other clubs but I can assure you there’s nothing more important to me than the integrity of our competition and the fairness of our competition between clubs. We scrutinize those salary caps very, very carefully.”
The league has been active in raising the player salary cap but their enforcement of it — or lack thereof — has been scrutinized for years. Previously, Forge was the poster child for supposed cap circumvention but Atlético Ottawa stole the mantle this year by recruiting the likes of Manny Aparicio, Amer Didic, Ballou Tabla, Kris Twardek, Matteo de Brienne and Rayane Yesli. Supporters of other clubs called foul play, as they had when Forge managed to lure Terran Campbell and Alessandro Hojabrpour away from Pacific.
“It’s my job and my staff’s job to make sure everybody has a level playing field.”
CPL commissioner Mark Noonan
Noonan said don’t believe the noise.
“We have a salary cap and it’s a hard cap,” he said, explaining salaries are public between clubs, so that Derek Martin, Halifax Wanderers’ president and founder, is able to see Rob Friend’s bookkeeping at Pacific and Vancouver. Although the financials aren’t made available to the public, Noonan said there’s transparency amongst clubs. When asked about making player salaries public, he said that issue is for the league and the players’ union, PFA Canada, to discuss. He declined to comment about negotiations between the two parties.
He did share that this year, in a bid to further regulate clubs, the league introduced an audit, which started months before the April 1 compliance date. As this publication reported earlier, all clubs were compliant by the deadline but not without a little help from the league.
In fact, said Noonan, some players didn’t get signed due to cap constraints.
“Four clubs were in danger of not being in compliance by our compliance date. We worked with all four clubs to ensure they were within the cap,” he said.
When asked about how the league decides when is the right time to bump up the salary cap given Valour reported $1.25 million in losses last year, the commissioner noted clubs have never been more competitive in spending than in 2024. Most clubs are pushing the limits of the league’s $1.21 million player cap, an eight per cent increase from last year. Any form of player compensation that is negotiated in a league contract falls within this budget.
“I don’t worry about one owner being more wealthy than another owner and spending more. All of our clubs are spending what they can to push the cap to its limit,” said Noonan. “My football department reported the cap numbers have never been so close as they have been this year.”
The cap, as it’s constructed now, rewards clubs for investing in young Canadian talent; they’re eligible for salary cap relief of up to $100,000 per year for U-21 player salaries. Under this category, only half of a U-21 player’s salary counts towards the cap. U Sports contracts, designed in conjunction with schools, provide compensation in the form of tuition support. There’s no financial information available on the Exceptional Young Talent contracts.
All three developmental contract types — Exceptional Young Talent, U-Sports and development — are considered part of a club’s developmental roster, allowing them to carry up to 32 players in total. And if Noonan has his way, the league will continue to push the envelope, be it through an elevated salary cap maximum or incentivizing the development of Canadian talent.
“I’m incredibly optimistic where this league is headed,” said Noonan.
A lot of files remain in the air. Noonan shared this week, only months after stating that two new clubs were likely for 2025, that such expansion was “unlikely.” A collective bargaining agreement between the CPL and the players’ union has yet to materialize. And then there’s the whole CSB / Canada Soccer deal.
But on Saturday, amid all the noise, Noonan was like everybody else: he got a chance to take in CPL football. That’s surely a moment worth celebrating.
Further reading:
- Contracts, coaching gigs and Mark Noonan’s seal of approval: inside the CPL’s salary cap regulations
- ‘That’s a dangerous combination’: Insiders make their CPL regular season predictions
- 8 CPL Thoughts: Amer Didic is back on the market, a surprise cap increase, Forge roster news and more
Cover Photo Credit: David Chant
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