City councillor hoping to score CFL game locally

One city councillor is looking to bring national football to the Windsor area. 

Ward 3 councillor Renaldo Agostino says he has been working for a handful of years to get the Canadian Football League to play a game in the Windsor region. 

The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a city in Canada, with the closest team to Windsor being the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. 

CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie stated at the Grey Cup on TSN that he could see the Touchdown Atlantic, a single CFL game in Halifax, being moved to different cities across Canada to attract more fans to the league. 

Agostino says the local area is a prime candidate for a CFL game, and a CFL team. 

"I think Windsor is prime for certainly a game, and I think Windsor, there's no question in my mind, should be on the shortlist of potential franchises moving forward within the next decade or two."

He says Huskies Stadium in Halifax expanded seating capacity for Touchdown Atlantic this year, and Windsor could do the same. 

"We have fields right now where we can accommodate up to, through expanding some bleachers and stuff, up to 10,000 fans. I mean when you look at Halifax's game, I believe their capacity was 10,000 for the stadium that they used. So it's really not just an idea to do something really cool in Windsor-Essex, but it's also an opportunity for us to put Windsor on the map."

Agostino says he feels confident in making this happen.

"I think we're kind of still early on in putting the right people in the right places, but for something that I've been working on for six years I've never felt more confident that we're probably at the 40 or 30 yard line on this one to be able to throw that pass in the end zone and make it happen for this community. So, I think things are getting closer."

Agostino is looking to pitch to the CFL in the near future that Windsor-Essex would be a great location for the game to be held, and is hoping to have that in the region in the next two years.

He adds that he believes Windsor-Essex could support a CFL team, and the necessity to build a stadium is going to happen over the next decade as the region continues to grow. 

- with files from CTV Windsor's Bob Bellacicco