Arena Premier League

Historically the Canadian professional indoor soccer landscape consisted of Canadian franchises in American leagues particularly in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL).[4][5][6] The height of Canadian participation in indoor soccer occurred during the 1980–81 and 1981–82 NASL seasons when four Canadian clubs participated simultaneously. The height of Canadian participation in the NPSL would eventually expand to include four teams, which consisted of the Edmonton Drillers, Montreal Impact, Toronto Shooting Stars, and Toronto ThunderHawks.[7][8] After the demise of the NPSL in 2001 the country was without a professional league structure, until the creation of the Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League (CMISL) in 2007.[9] The league served as the first exclusively Canadian professional indoor soccer league, and was primarily based in Western Canada until it ceased operations in 2012.[10]

After the creation of the Canadian Arena Soccer Association (CASA) in 2017, the governing body created a pyramid of play starting with the introduction of the Youth Arena Premier League to serve as the developmental league.[11] While the Arena Premier League would serve as the premier professional arena soccer league in Canada, and as the player pool provider for the national team program with intentions to expand nationally.[12] The APL began operations in the 2017–2018 season with the creation of the International Division with the Caribbean Stars AC, Croatia AC, Italy AC, Portugal AC, Serbia AC, South America AC, and Ukraine AC as the founding members.[13]