AFC Toronto signs Canadian international Emma Regan

AFC Toronto made history with the signing of midfielder Emma Regan on Thursday.  

Regan, a 24-year-old from Burnaby, B.C., becomes the first current member of the Canadian women's team to sign with a Northern Super League club ahead of its inaugural season in 2025.  

Also on Thursday, AFC Toronto signed former Canadian youth team defender Kaela Hansen. Regan and Hansen are the sixth and seventh players on Toronto’s roster, joining Canadian forwards Jade Kovacevic and Leah Pais, American defender Croix Soto, Saint Kitts and Nevis midfielder Cloey Uddenberg, and Japan’s Aoi Kizaki.  

Regan has four caps for Canada since making her international debut in 2018. Her most recent appearance came in a 5-1 win over South Korea in a friendly in Spain last week when she played the full 90 minutes. 

This is a landmark moment for the NSL as Regan is the only current member of the Canadian women’s team to have signed on with a team from the league. Yet, Regan downplayed her place in NSL history, saying she doesn’t “need any of the headlines that come” with the distinction.  

“I think there's probably a bit of responsibility on all of us players that are signing in the league, to really represent Canada and represent Canadian soccer in a very positive way, especially to young girls that are potentially looking up to us, that are looking to play for the national team or professionally one day,” Regan told TFC Republic.  

“I try not to really focus too much on the external and I'm just really grateful for the opportunity. I think that it's going to be a great opportunity for me to further my game as well, as well as potentially further soccer in Canada, and I’m just excited to be a part of the project."

Regan was a member of the Vancouver Whitecaps Girls Elite REX program and then attended the University of Texas at Austin (where she was a teammate of fellow national team member Julia Grosso) from 2018 to 2022 before turning pro in 2023 when she signed with HB Køge.  

Her contract with HB Køge recently came to an end after spending two seasons in Denmark, paving the way for her to come home and join AFC Toronto.   

“I just started kind of thinking about what was next and thinking about my next steps. AFC Toronto reached out and was showing interest, and I was really encouraged by all of our talks with the coaching staff and the sporting director. I think their values, their vision for the club is something that I really want to be a part of,” Regan explained.  

“As a player at this stage in my career, I'm really looking for a team that's going to be a really competitive training environment, a professional club somewhere that I'm going to be able to push myself and develop. And that's exactly what [coach AFC coach Marko Milanovic] wants for AFC Toronto. The style of play, playing a nice possession style of play, that was something that attracted me.  

With HB Køge, Regan made 32 appearances while playing in different midfield roles, and scoring three goals as she helped the team win a league title.   

Regans looks back at her time in Denmark with great fondness and with gratitude for HB Køge, as her two-year stint there allowed her to grow as a young player at the beginning of her club career.  

“I came into the whole process of becoming a professional and signing my professional contract pretty naively and I just wanted to get started. I wanted to be somewhere that I was going to play and be really challenged and pushed as a player,” Regan said.  

“But I really hit the jackpot with Denmark and this team specifically. It’s such a competitive place to train and play, but also such an amazing group of girls and coaching staff that really allowed me to develop over these past two years.”  

Regan was a standout NCAA player at Texas. She scored four goals and tallied six assists in 90 appearances as a four-year starter with the Longhorns. She captained the team from 2020 to 2022, leading it to a Big 12 Championship in 2022, while also earning All-Big 12 honours in 2019, 2021, and 2022.   

While attending school in Austin, Regan never thought she’d have the opportunity to play pro soccer in Canada.   

“I think a lot of us Canadian players maybe didn't want to get our hopes up about a Canadian League. The closest to home you could play is the [NWSL], and they have a very competitive league there. I wanted to experience living in Europe and playing in Europe, and I really wanted the taste for that over here, which I got, and I've absolutely loved,” Regan said.   

“There's been opportunities for Canadians in the U.S. to go to college, and overseas to some smaller countries like Denmark who have pretty good established leagues. But I think it's just time that Canada kind of catches up with that. And I really didn't think it would be possible to play professionally at home. But I'm so happy that the NSL is here, and I'm really thankful to all the players that came before me that are pushing for this and pushing soccer forward enough that we can be at this point today.” 

It’s a familiar refrain from a lot of Canadian players who see the Northern Super League as absolutely vital to promoting the growth and health of the women’s game in this country.  

“We're one of very few top competitive countries in the world that didn't have a league before the NSL. And I think it's really about representation and inspiring the next generation, showing them that this is how you can play and that you can play in Canada; you can stay in soccer as a young girl. So, I think that's very important to me, that I'm hopefully going to be part of pushing that message forward to Canadians,” Regan stated. 

RELATED READING: News | Features | Match reports | Newsletter | Opinion | Q&As | Roster moves | TFC 2 | Audio | Videos

Hansen, who like Regan is a 24-year-old from Burnaby, B.C., played for Canada at both the under-17 and under-20 levels. She also competed for her country at the 2016 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Jordan. That Canadian team was coached by Bev Priestman and also featured Regan, Grossi, Jordyn Huitema, Deanne Rose, Jayde Riviere and Lysianne Proulx.  

At club level, Hansen has played for KuPS in Finland and ŽFK Spartak Subotica where she won a Serbian Women's Super League and the League Cup. The Canadian also competed in the UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifiers with both clubs during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. Before turning pro, she played NCAA soccer at the University of Kansas.   

The 2025 NSL season kicks off next April with the league’s six founding teams taking to the pitch: AFC Toronto, Calgary Wild FC, Halifax Tides FC, Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC and Vancouver Rise FC.      

Team rosters will consist of up to 25 players with a maximum of seven internationals. The league is looking at a salary cap of $1.5 million per club.    

The NSL’s minimum salary is $50,000, with no maximum salary cap for designated players, which the league says ranks it among global leaders for women's soccer.  

(Top photo courtesy of Canada Soccer)

TFC Republic has a comments section! At the very bottom of every story, there is a feature where you can post your comments, so be sure to share your thoughts and views.