League1 Ontario

League1 Ontario (L1ON) is a semi-professional men's soccer league in Ontario, Canada. The league is sanctioned by the Canadian Soccer Association and the Ontario Soccer Association.

League1 Ontario consists of three tiers – League1 Premier, League1 Championship, and League2 Ontario – with promotion and relegation between them. The top-two tiers consist of 12 and 10 teams respectively, while the lowest tier is uncapped in size.

In the Canadian soccer league system, the men's division is behind the fully-professional Canadian Premier League. It is part of League1 Canada, the national third tier with regional division, along with three other provincial leagues. The league champion qualifies for the Canadian Championship, Canada's domestic cup tournament. Dino Rossi serves as the commissioner of the league.

History
League1 Ontario was founded on November 15, 2013, in an announcement by the Ontario Soccer Association (OSA) that it would pilot the semi-professional league in 2014 and 2015 as a key pillar of long-term player development in Canada. The league would be administered by DG Sports, who also operate the province's amateur Ontario Soccer League, with Dino Rossi serving as commissioner. OSA President Ron Smale stated that the league's core group of players are to consist of U-23s, with League1 complementing the newly formed Ontario Player Development League (OPDL) elite youth league as a pathway for professional player development.

On April 8, 2014, the OSA revealed its plans for the inaugural season of League1 which would begin during the final weekend in May 2014. The season featured 10 teams, chosen through a standards-based application process, which were: ANB Futbol, Durham Power FC, Internacional de Toronto, Kingston Cataraqui Clippers, Master's FA, Sigma FC, Toronto FC Academy, Vaughan Azzurri, Windsor Stars and Woodbridge Strikers. The league champion would face the champion of the Première ligue de soccer du Québec in the Inter-Provincial Cup to determine the national Division III champion.

Dylan Sacramento of Toronto FC Academy scored the first ever goal in the league with a 10th-minute strike against Vaughan Azzurri. In the same game, Mateo Restrepo received the league's first red card. On July 22, 2014, the league and the Ontario Soccer Association announced the termination of Internacional de Toronto's license agreement due to "failure to comply with agreed-upon league standards", with league matches rescheduled for the season to accommodate the change. Toronto FC Academy were crowned the inaugural league champions on October 4, 2014, after defeating the Cataraqui Clippers 3–1 to secure the top place in the regular season standings. Vaughan Azzurri and Sigma FC contested the inaugural League1 Cup on October 19, 2014, at BMO Field, with the Azzurri winning the single-game cup final 2–1 to be crowned champions.

As the number of teams in the league continued to grow through expansion, the league introduced a two-conference format with the winner of each conference facing off in a championship match. After the 2016 season, the Inter-Provincial Cup was cancelled, with the winners of League1 Ontario and the PLSQ instead advancing to the national Canadian Championship the following season, beginning in 2018.

In 2018, the league returned to a single division, introducing playoffs for the top finishers of the league to decide the league champion. The League Cup tournament was eliminated the following season.

On November 14, 2018, the Canadian Premier League announced its purchase of League1 Ontario. According to L1O commissioner Dino Rossi, L1O would serve as "CPL's official development league."

Due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the league cancelled the 2020 season and delayed the start of the 2021 season. In 2022, L1O joined League1 Canada as a founding member. League1 Canada is an alliance of soccer leagues that operate at the pro-am level.

In 2024, League1 Ontario restructured from a single league into a three-tier competition. First announced in January 2022, existing teams were divided into the top two tiers (Premier and Championship) and the lowest tier (League2) was created as an entry point for expansion clubs to the L1O system. The competition adopted promotion and relegation for clubs to move between the tiers. The 2024 season also saw the return of the L1 Cup, a league cup knockout tournament which features teams from all three tiers of the L1O system.

Competition format
League1 Ontario clubs are grouped into three divisions: League1 Premier, League1 Championship, and League2 Ontario. The regular season runs from April to August in which teams only play against other teams in their division. The top-two tiers use a single table round-robin format while the lowest tier is further subdivided into regional groupings. The team that accumulates the most points during the season is crowned league champions. In 2016 and 2017, the league champion was determined by a single match playoff between the winners of the east and west divisions. From 2018 to 2023, a larger playoff format was used.

Since 2017, the winner of the Premier division has qualified for the Canadian Championship. At the end of each season, the winner of the Championship and League2 divisions are promoted to the next tier up while the bottom team in the Premier and Championship divisions are relegated down.

Beginning in 2019, the Supporters Trophy was created by the Rogue Street Elite supporter group of North Mississauga SC to be given to the regular season champions.

L1 Cup
The L1 Cup is a league cup tournament that features all L1O clubs. It runs concurrently with the regular season, with cup games usually taking place mid-week. It is not a form of playoffs and all matches are separate from the regular season and are not reflected in the season standings. The 2014 and 2015 cups included a group stage and a knockout stage but from 2016 to 2018 the format was a single-elimination tournament. Following a hiatus from 2019 to 2023, the L1 Cup will return in 2024 to coincide with the league's restructuring.

Current clubs
Twelve teams compete in League1 Premier, ten in League1 Championship, and all remaining teams in League2 Ontario. In 2024, existing teams were assigned to either the Premier or the Championship division based on results from the 2022 and 2023 seasons.

Of the 25 current clubs, 4 are based in Toronto, 13 are based elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area, 7 are based in other cities in Southern Ontario and there is 1 club based in Northern Ontario.

League2 Ontario
In 2024, a third tier has been introduced featuring new clubs as well as reserve teams. 24 teams, 3 independent and 21 reserve, have been split into three conferences and will be eligible to earn promotion to the higher tiers.

Regulations
League1 Ontario was founded with a series of values, objectives and standards all aimed at furthering the league's stated objective of improving player development in Ontario and Canada. Some of these regulations include:
 * Standards-based club licensing, renewed annually (not a franchise/ownership model). Standards include technical, organizational, facility and financial criteria.
 * Maximum of 3 non-Canadian players per club.
 * Maximum of 7 substitutions per match.
 * Maximum of 9 substitutes can be named to the bench.

League1 Ontario is an open-age league however there are several rules designed to give playing opportunities to young players. For the 2022 season, teams were required to have at least eight U-23 players on each match-day roster and to give U-20 players a total of at least 2,000 minutes across the regular season. In 2024, the "eight U-23 player rule" was removed and replaced by a minutes quota. U-23 players must now play at least 41% of available minutes across the season (9,000 in Premier division) and U-20 players must play 11% of available minutes (2,500 in Premier division).

Honours
Bold indicates clubs playing in 2024 League1 Ontario season. From 2016 to 2023, the winner of the playoffs determined the league champion.

Reserve division
In 2019, L1O launched a men's U21 Reserve Division open to existing League1 Ontario or Ontario Player Development League license holders. The inaugural year will consist of a 12-game summer season and a separate 10-game fall season. Nine teams will participate in the 2019 summer season with a possibility of more teams joining for the fall.

Players who earned national team caps while in L1O
The following players have earned a senior national team cap while playing in League1 Ontario (the year of their first cap while playing in the league is listed). Players who earned caps before or after playing in League1 Ontario are not included, unless they also earned caps while in the league. This section also does not include youth caps (U23 or below).