The Arena Premier League is a Canadian semi-professional indoor soccer league located in the province of Ontario. It is sanctioned by the Canadian Arena Soccer Association, with matches being played at the Canlan Sportsplex, and Hershey Centre in the city of Mississauga. The league is the premier professional development arena soccer league in Canada, and operates with a single table structure. The season runs from December to April, followed by a playoff format to determine the overall champion. The league was formed in 2017 shortly after the formation of the Canadian Arena Soccer Association, along with the Youth Arena Premier League its developmental league. The purpose of the league is to develop and provide talent to the Canadian national indoor team, and to the Mississauga MetroStars in the Major Arena Soccer League.
History
Historically the Canadian professional indoor soccer landscape consisted of Canadian franchises in American leagues particularly in the North American Soccer League and the National Professional Soccer League. 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. 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 in 2007. 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. After the creation of the Canadian Arena Soccer Association 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. 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. 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.
