TORONTO — Despite the worldwide attention the Canadian Premier League garnered for its snowy championship game earlier this month, league boss James Johnson says he has no intention of following Major League Soccer’s decision to shift to a summer-to-spring season format.
Johnson, Group CEO of Canadian Soccer Business which shares the same ownership as the CPL, says the Canadian league will stick with its existing schedule.
The CPL kicked off its 2025 season on April 5 with the championship game Nov. 9
“We’ll maintain a summer season,” Johnson said. “We love playing the calendar year. It’s a great time of year for the fans and the community to come out during the beautiful summer months predominantly. And kicking off in the spring aligns us well with the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
“And then finishing at the end of the season where we’ve got the opportunity to see what we saw during the final a couple of weeks ago, something that we think is great for story-telling. So we love our calendar and we think that the fact that MLS is shifting to the European calendar is actually beneficial to the CPL because it means that if you want to watch soccer during summer in Canada, you’re watching the CPL.”
The new MLS format will see its 2027-28 regular season begin in mid-to-late July 2027 and conclude with the MLS Cup in late May 2028. The league will take winter break from mid-December to early February.
The switch moves MLS in line with other major leagues around the world.
The season change will also better align MLS with the international transfer windows. Currently the MLS primary transfer window runs from Jan. 31 to April 23, while most international leagues handle player transfers during the summer window.
MLS’s secondary transfer window ran July 24 to Aug. 21 this year.
“Look, there will be challenges but there will also be opportunities,” Johnson said when asked about the transfer window. “But that will just ultimately come down to how we work with Canada Soccer to ensure that the (transfer) windows between the CPL and the MLS are aligned as (much) possible so there can be movement between the competitions.
“But that’s a practical problem. It’s not something that I think we need to be too concerned about.”
The CPL final in Ottawa, which featured a blizzard and a highlight-reel bicycle kick goal, has generated more than one billion views with coverage in 174 countries, according to the league.
The snowy scenes and David Rodriguez’s acrobatic strike went viral on social media. Atlético Ottawa dethroned Cavalry FC 2-1 to lift the North Star Cup.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2025.
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
