Canada starts women's: "Important that women build it"

As of 2025, women can play soccer at a professional level in Canada.

The country has lacked a league, but the future one, which so far has no name, will consist of eight teams.

- It's been a journey, we've been working pretty hard behind the scenes here for a while and now we're at the point where we want to get the wider message out that we've been working on this, says former national team player Diana Matheson who is involved in the project .

So far, two clubs are ready for the league, Vancouver Whitecaps and Calgary Foothills.

The remaining six are expected to be confirmed in the next year.

"For women by women"

- We believe it is important that women build this league and we are committed to developing something that is built differently - for women by women.

We want to change the soccer landscape in Canada so that women's players can develop and play professionally here at home instead of having to go abroad, which all our national team players have to do now to be successful, says Christine Sinclair who won Olympic gold after the final win against Sweden in 2021.

The future league has an ambition to be able to compete with the salaries in the American NWSL, where the minimum annual salary this year was SEK 363,000.