The announcement was held in the Queen's Alumni Lounge at the ARC and was presented by main owner Lorne Abugov and three returning players, Joe Zupo (ex-Queen's University captain), Guillaume Surot (CSL 2013 MVP and Golden Boot winner), and Ryan McCurdy (Kingston FC veteran since year one).
Kingston FC, as a franchise, expects to do better this year than last, aiming to finishing top of the table in both the first division and the reserve division (now a fully professional division, and no longer a development division). To this end, the team has signed thirty players to contracts, fifteen of whom are returning from last season.
The returning players are goalkeepers Jaroslav Tesar and Yasuto Hoshiko, Kingston/Queen's players Zupo, Nathan Klemencic, Jordan Brooks, and Jeff Borges, and other roster players such as McCurdy, Surot, Mademba Ba, Catalin Lichioiu, Joey Pineo, Jean-Michel Paulin, Tony El-Asmar, Michael Smith, and last year's captain, Austin White. There will be tryouts held in Kingston on April 16 and 17 with the hopes of bringing the number of rostered players to thirty-four.
The new players on the roster include New Zealander Fergus Neil, who played with Hawke's Bay United from 2009/10 to 2013/14, Bryan Kommerowski, a German who has played with TSV Sasel, Rahlstedter SC, and SC Condor I, Paul Willis, a Scottish player who was with Dunfermline from 2007/08 through to 2012/13 and East Fife this past season, Stephen Hindmarch who has played with Carlisle United, Shrewsbury Town, and Workington AFC, and Adam Shaban (Wesa), who played with the Kenyan national team in the 2004 African Cup and played with Tusker FC and Nybergsund more recently.
Other signed players include Idrissa Dacosta (Girdondins de Bordeaux Academy), Jinmi Ismail (Washington Adventist University - USCAA), Ivica Sunjka (Toronto Croatia - CSL), Odain Simpson (Waterhouse FC/Arnett Gardens FC - Jamaica), José Arana (Mexico), Arvin Nesarhosseini (Iran), and Mamandi Ouattara.
Guillaume Surot stated that he felt that the competition this year would drive the team more and hopes to repeat last year's career year personally. Joe Zupo also discussed his time on trial with Exeter City FC in England over the last few weeks. Overall, he felt that it was a positive experience and discussed training and playing with their U18 squad and playing in a friendly vs Swindon. He also briefly mentioned spending some time in Ireland, but felt that portion of the trip was not as positive as his time with Exeter.
Lorne Abugov also briefly addressed Kingston FC's hopes of working on an affiliation with Fergus Neil's New Zealand team, Hawke's Bay United, with the possibility of being able to take some Kingston FC players there to train or even play during the CSL off-season.
A question was raised about Kingston FC's prior mention of friendlies against the Ottawa Fury FC to be held at Richardson Stadium, and he stated that the team "would love them to happen, but we understand the governance situation and so we're leaving it in the hands of possible opponents, including possibly the NASL and USL Pro clubs during their mid-season break."
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