2024 Canadian Premier League Season

The 2024 Canadian Premier League season was the sixth season of the Canadian Premier League, the top level of Canadian soccer. Forge FC were the defending champions, having beaten Cavalry FC, the CPL Shield winners, in the 2023 final.

Forge won the CPL Shield as regular season champions, their second CPL shield and sixth league trophy. In the 2024 CPL final, Cavalry won their first league title by defeating Forge 2–1 to claim the North Star Cup, their third league trophy.

Team and rule changes

The same eight teams that competed in the 2023 season are competing in the 2024 season. The CPL's total player compensation budget was increased by $87,500 to a total of $1,112,500 (or $1,212,500 for teams maximizing the U21 salary incentive).

York United was bought by a new ownership group from Mexico, Game Plan Sports Group.

Teams

Personnel and sponsorship

Number of teams by province or territory

Coaching changes

Regular season

Format

The regular season was played as a quadruple round-robin, with each team playing the other seven teams twice at home and twice away between April and October. The regular season winner (the team ranked first after all 28 games) qualified for the 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup and the top five teams qualified for the playoffs; the top two got byes to the semifinals.

Standings

Notes

Results

Positions by matchweek

Playoffs

The 2024 season used the Page playoff system. The team who finished first in the regular-season table played the team who finished second, with the winner hosting the final. The fourth- and fifth-placed teams played in a play-in round, and the winner then played the third-placed team in a quarterfinal. The quarterfinal winner then played the loser of the game between the first and second-placed teams for the other spot in the final.

In playoffs, if the scores were equal when normal playing time expires, extra time would be played for two periods of 15 minutes each. This would then be followed, if required, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winners.

Forge FC and Atlético Ottawa were the first teams to qualify for the playoffs, doing so on September21 and 22 respectively. After some initial confusion over Cavalry FC's qualification status and a "review of the league's playoff clinch scenarios," Cavalry officially qualified on September28. York United FC became the fourth qualifier on October1. With two matchweeks left in the season, all remaining teams were still able to qualify for the fifth playoff spot. This changed on October 12 when HFX Wanderers FC became the first team eliminated from playoff contention following a loss in the club's penultimate match. Pacific FC clinched the fifth and final playoff spot on the final day of the season.

On October6, Forge clinched the CPL regular season title, winning the CPL Shield and securing the top playoff seed.

Bracket

Matches

Play-in round

Quarterfinal

First semifinal

Second semifinal

Final

Statistical leaders

Top scorers

Top assists

Clean sheets

Attendance

Awards

Canadian Premier League Awards

The 2024 Canadian Premier League Awards were held in Calgary, Alberta, on November 7, 2024.

Canadian Premier League Best XI

Team of the Week

The Gatorade Team of the Week was selected by the CPL's Kristian Jack and OneSoccer's Oliver Platt.

Monthly Awards

Player transfers

According to FIFA's worldwide registration periods calendar, the Canadian Soccer Association's (CSA's) 2024 pre-season transfer window opened on January 31 and closed on April 23; the mid-season transfer window would open on July 18 and close on August 14. However, the CPL later announced that its mid-season transfer window would instead open on July 5 and close on August 2, contradicting FIFA's published dates. This discrepancy was resolved on July 11 when the CSA announced that the mid-season transfer window would open on July 12 and close on August 8 as a compromise between the CPL's and Major League Soccer's interests.

CPL clubs were required to be fully roster compliant by April 1 at 5:00 pm ET; rosters were frozen on September 13 at 4:00 pm ET.

U Sports Draft

The 2024 CPL–U Sports Draft took place on December 14, 2023. Each team made two picks in the draft, for a total of 16 selections.

Foreign players

Canadian Premier League teams can sign a maximum of seven international players, out of which only five can be in the starting line-up for each match.

The following international players were signed for the 2024 season. Note that players may be considered domestic for CPL purposes (Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees) while still representing other countries in international competitions.

Players in ''italic'' denote players who were new to their respective clubs for the 2024 season, sorted chronologically by their announcement. Players in Bold indicate players who have represented their national teams at the senior level.

Notes

References

{{Canada D1 soccer seasons

Canadian Premier League seasons
Canadian Premier League