Q&A with Halifax Wanderers president Derek Martin: Coaching search, free agents and expansion
The Wanderers 2025 season ended in heartbreaking fashion; a playoff win was within their grasp. But they let it slip away. Now, Derek Martin, the club's founder and president, is laying plans for a campaign which he hopes will take the Wanderers to the next level.
Josh Healey, editor and publisher of HFX Football Post, recently connected with Martin to discuss the club's coaching search, free agents and expansion this off-season.
JH: As always, thank you for your time, Derek. It's been about a month since the Wanderers' season ended. We're officially into what I like to call silly season, the off-season, where you never really know what's going to happen. What have the last few weeks been like for you?
DM: I often joke with my family, my son was asking me the other day, why I was so busy, you know? For us, this is the busiest part of the year. Once the season's going, there's not really much we can do. We've put all the plans in place, the schedule's fixed, you know all the theme nights, partnerships, you know, and then it's just execution, execution, execution.
At my stage of life now, I'm not as into the weeds into the execution, it's more on the strategy and the building of whatever it is for the season. I'm always excited for this time of year because everything's kind of fresh and we can kind of look at what we learned this past season and try to apply it to what we're going to do next year to makes things even better as we try to improve all aspects of the business — not just on the pitch but everything we do off the pitch.
Then, of course, this year we have the added complexity and excitement of being on the hunt for our new head coach - general manager - sporting director. We've got to figure out what we're actually going to call this position. But the person that'll lead us on the football side of the business and get us over that hump. We've done a good job of climbing it gradually but now we're looking to take the final steps to actually get to the top of the mountain.
JH: I kind of want to dig into the decisions that led us here for this hunt for the head coach - sporting director role, whatever you decide to call it. I was at Patrice (Gheisar's) last press conference. It was very emotional, it was an emotional match. I think within 48 hours of that the press release came out that his contract was not being renewed. Can you talk about why you decided to make that decision so quickly?
DM: Yeah, I'd like to think that I manage people in a way that there aren't a lot of surprises. Patrice and I had a number of conversations, as you'd expect, over the three years and especially this year over what our expectations were and what we were trying to achieve as a football club. It was no surprise to anybody that we didn't meet those expectations this year. The beauty of sport is there's a scoreboard so it's quite easy to figure out if you've achieved your goals or not based on what the scoreboard says.
Unfortunately, we didn't achieve those goals. We came close but we didn't get to where we wanted to get to, which really was to finish third (on the table) and to advance in the playoffs and to have a home playoff game and to win that home playoff game. I feel that I was very honest with Patrice about that throughout the season. We didn't achieve those things and that brought us to a point where I felt like it was a time to try something else and move in a different direction and build on the great things that Patrice did do. He brought a lot to the club. He had an incredible work ethic, no one worked harder than he did to take us to that next level.
Josh Healey
But at the end of the day, there's usually a pretty short timeframe that coaches have to put their stamp on a club and a team and take us in a new direction and I just don't think we were ready to take another step. I think Patrice brought us to another level. But to get to the level above that, I felt like we needed to make some changes both in the head coach but also in the way the head coach had some control in the way the roster was built. Ultimately, if they are going to be accountable for wins and losses, I felt it was only fair they had a really important say in who the people going to battle with were. Quite honestly, it allows us to bump up the compensation to a degree that allows us to go after some different types of people.
Two great people have been our coaches in our history, Stephen Hart and Patrice, both really good men, both people I respect, family guys, people respected in the soccer community. There's no doubt about any of that. But the one thing that neither of them had was experience at the pro level with a club and that's something I think we really now need to bring in.
JH: You already touched on it where you're looking for a new coach with more experience and they'll have more say by combining those positions. Just from what I've been told, and my understanding chatting with people around the club, roster and squad decisions had been made by committee previously. Can you delve into the philosophical differences of deciding for the sporting director role and coaching role to become one?
DM: I wouldn't say it was by committee. I would say there were lots of voices to add context and give opinion. Ultimately, Patrice did have the final say on the players that we brought in but there was lots of involvement from Mark Watson and Matt Fegan. I had the final say as it related to decisions we had to make about salary cap allocation, if you will. I certainly wasn't involved in trying to ascertain that certain player had the right footwork or right style of play, that's not my area of expertise. Ultimately, (my input) was about how it all fits together and if we wanted to make a move on somebody who would require a significant amount of the salary cap, was I okay with that from a here's what it's going to mean (perspective).
I don't think we've necessarily struggled to bring in talent, if I'm being honest. I think we brought in good players. I think it was one of Patrice's strengths that he was able to recruit very well and bring in guys he wanted. I just think at some point the type of player we brought in, we weren't spreading the talent amongst the squad that enabled us to compete at different levels in different types of games. We brought in a lot of very talented, skillful, tactical-type players, which is good, who could be very entertaining for the fans and play some beautiful football.
But we lacked some flexibility when it came to being able to do some different things. At the end of the day, there'll still be a group of people involved in making sure we think through a bunch of different aspects when we attract players but by giving the new coach the additional title of general manager - sporting director, you know, they will be very clear that — and I did it because we wanted to be very clear in the recruitment process — that person we attract would know they'd have the ability to really bring in the players they felt could help them win and play in a style they wanted to play in.
Matt Fegan is still a big part of the club. He's our vice-president of football operations. Matt really looks after everything administratively that we need to do on the football side, how we manage our budget for travel, how we deal with agents, how we adhere to salary cap rules, all the great work he's done around football development around the region. It's a full-time job as to how we're trying to grow the game in Atlantic Canada. He'll still have a seat at the table and be part of the mix but we're certainly giving the new person the chance to really shape the team in the way they think will give them the best chance to be successful.
JH: You mentioned Matt there. Just for posterity's sake, what does that mean for Mark Watson?
DM: Mark was a consultant for us throughout the season. He is still available to us. We're taking a pause right now as we look for our new coach. That wasn't a role Mark was interested in, he's focused on purely being a general manager type with the MLS or national teams or whatever. Certainly, we valued a lot of the input Mark brought to us. It really helped us this year, I think, to take another step and we've got a great relationship where he's still available and we still chat all the time. We actually talked through a couple of candidates, he brought forward a couple of candidates to us, and we've gone through the interview process with those people. He's still a great ally and friend with the club but he won't have a formal role as we go forward.
JH: Understood. Last year, he was at all the home matches, he was always in the press box so I was curious how he fit into the puzzle as you guys move forward.
DM: As you know, Josh, I'm pretty transparent with this stuff. To be able to take a step up in terms of the quality of person we're bringing in (for head coach), we had to take the salary that we were paying to Mark, the salary we were paying our coach, and combine those things to try and really go after somebody with the ambition to take a next level up.
JH: The biggest question that everyone wants to know is how has the search for that person gone?
DM: It's been really good. We took a different approach this time. When Patrice was hired, we did a more traditional (search), put a post out, shared it wide, invited resumes and interest, whittled that first group down to a shortlist and then had initial conversations and then took that down to a smaller shortlist for individual interviews and eventually landed on Patrice.
This time around, it's been a little different. It's been much more targeted. We have gone after a few people that are well respected, whose name's float around as options for these types of roles. I've been very encouraged by their response. We continually hear the same things: we have a great opportunity here. Of course, we have challenges but how do you turn that into something really unique in Canadian soccer.
The truth is there's three MLS jobs and now nine CPL head coaching jobs. There's 12 (men's) professional coaching jobs in Canada. There is a great group of people who are intrigued and I do think that Halifax just with the way we've set it up, our fanbase, our stadium, we have the potential and people see the potential of really doing something special here. I've been really pleased with the level of interest we've received from people that we've targeted that maybe people wouldn't think would be interested. We'll see.
We've had some great, in-depth interviews with a shortlist of people and we're getting close. I'd say in the next few weeks we'll be able to kind of finalize and get going. It's important to get something done before the end of the year. We've got options on a number of players that expire on December 31st so we have to be fair to them, give them some direction and let them know what's happening. And there's a free agent element, obviously, that's a horserace that's going on to secure the services of some players. We're not sitting on the sidelines entirely. There's a few players out there we're confident any coach would want to have that we're talking to but there's no doubt we wouldn't want to make a ton of decisions prior to this person taking the job.
JH: You just did it for me there but I wanted to pivot to the topic of players.
The spine of the squad is back. Thomas Meilleur-Giguère, Isaiah Johnston, Lorenzo Callegari, Tiago Coimbra and Ryan Telfer are back, as well as a number of others. There's lots of players on options. But this is a different off-season since I've been covering the club in so much as you don't have a head coach in place where you know the style you want to play. How do you manage that conversation with free agents while you've got 10 candidates in mind? How do you pick the players you're talking to, including some players who came out of contract with the Wanderers?
DM: Yeah, it's difficult. We can't really commit to them yet because that would be unfair because we haven't made a decision, I haven't made a decision.
We've had to keep things fairly high level at this stage. We've talked to some players about being in Halifax, what we can offer them from a lifestyle standpoint, what we look like from a budgetary standpoint, we talk about how we could fit them in. And they're not going to make a decision, I wouldn't expect, until they see who the coach is and make sure that's someone either through reputation, or because they know them, or because they've worked under them before or have friends. It's a very small world, as you know. There aren't a lot of secrets out there. A number of the people we've interviewed so far is circulating amongst the players and I've been getting questions all the time of: 'Is this guy going to get the job?'
So, there's some rumours and discussions and we've basically said to all of them, before you make a decision somewhere else, just give us a couple weeks here to finalize our process. If that works, and is a good fit, we'd love to take that conversation with them to the next step.
Josh Healey
JH: There were certainly some highlights this season and one of the big ones was Tiago, of course. I reported before he won the Best Canadian U-21 Player award that he was training with an MLS club. Can you talk about Tiago's development and how you've seen him grow over the last few years?
DM: Tiago's my guy. He's someone who represents exactly what we want the club to aspire to. We took a chance on a raw athlete who had so much potential who, for whatever reason, hadn't been able to put it together yet.
Over the last three years, Tiago has grown as a person, he's matured as a young man off the field, which has been amazing to see. He's always been a great kid. When he got here, he was always full of youthful energy, joking around, fun to be around. He hasn't lost the fun but he's certainly matured as a man and settled down a little bit.
It was really unfortunate that he got the injury he did in September because it wasn't his fault. It wasn't an injury you can prevent. He worked so hard with Nick Edwards, our high performance director, and our physio team, he was the first guy in, last guy out. He was doing all the extra muscular strengthening exercises he could possibly do to avoid the groin injuries and muscle tissue injuries he'd had in the past. And then he just get's totally unlucky that he got stepped on, basically, and had a high ankle sprain that was completely unavoidable. He was well on his way, I think, to winning the Golden Boot and having an amazing season if not for that injury.
We still have incredibly high hopes for Tiago. I certainly expect him to be our first significant player sale as a club, that's been our commitment to him from the beginning that we'll work with him, and help him as he helps us score goals and gets us wins, it's a great mutually beneficial relationship. If he does his job well, we're happy and if he does his job well, he's going to be happy because it's going to result in him moving on, which he desperately wants.
He's been a really great kid to watch grow up in the club and I truly hope for him he gets the chance that he deserves and his work continues to be rewarded in avoiding injury. If he's with us at the start of next year . . . obviously, there's no secrets here, if he were to get an opportunity, we'd happily try to make it work to try and move on because that's what we've committed to. But if he's back here, he's going to come out guns blazing and I think by mid-season he'll hopefully be leading the league in goals scored and have another opportunity to move on and do some great things.
JH: How do you decide this is enough money for a transfer for us to let him go versus, as you said, maybe you hang on to him for the beginning of next season? Is there a sweet spot to try and find?
DM: There is. There's a sweet spot in terms of what's the best fit for Tiago and the club and we do that by staying in communication and by being honest of what our goals are and what we want to achieve. That's not for the public, that's between us and Tiago. But again, he knows the deal and we know the deal and if we get the right offer for what his fair market value is, then we would never stand in his way.
If someone throws a low ball offer that we have to look at and say: 'Geez, what's the point of taking that money if it's going to cost us wins and goals because we're losing a great player?' Our job, and part of the opportunity for this new leader of the football department, is to be ready for that sale of Tiago because that's what we all want. When that happens, who's ready to fill in and be the next Tiago? There should always be a plan about who's coming up and who's ready to fill those shoes.
It isn't about finding a carbon copy of Tiago because there isn't. Tiago's a really unique specimen, which is why he's attracting a lot of interest. So, what do we do? That'll be part of the team composition knowing that there's a very possible situation that could happen in the summer next year where Tiago is moving on. How do we make sure we build the roster in the way to make sure there's other No. 9s in the team who can step up. We've invested in Tavio (Ciccarelli) as an (Exceptional Young Talent) for the last couple years and we have to do a better job of making sure those young men get their chances to grow and to show their stuff.
Part of that is why we started the U-21 program. Tavio gets those opportunities to play in the (International) Summer Series and the Portland match. Those are great chances for him to show everybody what he has but we have to do better at getting him into the first team and getting minutes and finding moments for them to be professionals. Do we always have a young version to step up? And then what do we do from a veteran standpoint to balance that off? That's the fun and the challenge of trying to build the roster. You don't always get it right.
JH: Two questions and the first one is about Tiago. Are you able to share where you're getting interest from? Again, I reported he was training with an MLS side. Are you able to say what club he's with?
DM: I won't say the club because they're looking at keeping some of that stuff under wraps. We've had interest from both MLS and Europe in Tiago. He's got a unique skillset. He has the athleticism that some teams don't have and it's just a matter of proving that he can continually deliver at a club at our level and at the next level, be available. I think if he can take that next step and prove that, he's still young.
When you watched him this year versus last year, he was a totally different player, and he had skill last year. If he adds more things to his skillset, which is apart of what going to these camps helps him do, these training sessions with MLS clubs, he gets a little bit better each time.
JH: I just wanted to delve into the development program you've established. Matt Fegan's been a huge part of that. What conversations are you having with young players now that the programs have several years of track record?
DM: I think it's become a great program. Matt's done an amazing job at developing it and working on it. Even now, we're branching out into the U-18 and he's got sessions from 6:30 a.m. until 8:00 a.m. this week which has players like Tavio, who's still in town, who's still going out and training and getting that time in on the pitch. These are all great things that are incredibly needed.
But we're really behind the eight ball. A lack of facilities, we don't have enough indoor facilities, we're fighting for time, that's all part of our stadium proposal and that's taking more time than we'd like. But we really are trying our best to create opportunities that work in our environment, which is a big challenge. Hopefully, in 10 years, there's a 10-year old kid today or an eight-year old kid today who's a phenom playing for our team for a couple years and moving on somewhere amazing but we're a bit away from that.
JH: Unless things have changed, I think you're still the chair of the league's expansion committee?
DM: I am.
JH: Great. So, I want to take a wider lens for a minute: it's a nine club league now. Can you walk us through the process to having FC Supra come in and getting into French Canada?
DM: It's huge getting into French Canada. We've had a conversation before about this, there's lots of cities, lots of ownership groups and unfortunately sometimes those two things aren't the same where they get aligned, which is part of the delay in pulling some of these things together. But it's always exciting to have interested groups who kind of want to join your family and put their money up and be willing to make an investment in the things we've been investing in the last few years.
I think Supra is a huge step forward for us. I think there's a great group of people there. There's knowledgeable people on the soccer side, well respected, been around CS Saint-Laurent, they know their stuff. There's some great investors who have the pockets to ensure it'll be a long-term play there. And it's an amazing market to be in. I don't know how it'll work out for them but I respect their decision to go all Québec (for their roster). I think it's a great experiment and it'll certainly play extraordinarily well from a marketing standpoint and getting some real passionate supporters out to be with them. I'm really looking forward to watching it grow and kickoff this year.
At the same time, we've got a number of other cities that are also interested. As you know, we did the Québec City game this summer and the Québec City group stays very, very interested to be involved, as well as a number of cities out in Western Canada. Our goal has been stated and obviously we need to grow and we want to be much more than eight, nine teams. Our goal is to get to 16 teams in the relatively short-term in the next five, six, seven years.
We've got a pretty aggressive plan but there's a bunch of things that have to come together. Those things are being gradually worked out. The final in Ottawa and the attention it garnered are all just little stepping stones, the games of the week on TSN, what we're working on for linear television in 2026 through the CRTC decisions that were made this year and what's being worked on there to ensure there's great exposure for the league in homes, bars and restaurants all over the entire country, our partnership with Canada Soccer. There's so many things we're close to figuring out I think we'll be ready for substantial expansion in the next year or two years that see us really start to add those numbers.
Josh Healey
JH: I've spoken to the Mayor of Kelowna —
DM: Kelowna's definitely an interesting one in an interesting market. Kelowna has some real appeal in how it fits as a smaller city but with some great population density during the season that we play. It's an interesting one.
JH: You talked about next year. Canada's hosting the World Cup. Schedule-wise, has that been figured out yet?
DM: No, usually our scheduling process is December - January to really kind of see what we're dealing with in terms of the different venues. Obviously, there's a few CFL venues that are utilized. There's more co-sharing now. The Halifax Tides use our venue; FC Supra are going to be playing out of the same venue the Montréal Roses use. The scheduling process is always complicated because you're trying to satisfy as many needs as possible.
We'll certainly be looking at how we take advantage of the World Cup being in North America. Also, (we've got to) respect that the World Cup's going on. When you look at the group stage, for example, there's four games on every single day. From June 11th until June 28th, from 11:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., there's soccer on. How do we not compete with that while also trying to not miss out on the opportunity it presents to really help put our brand of soccer front and centre in people's minds?
Obviously, we're working through a few ideas on how we do that. I think they'll likely be a period there where the CPL takes a little hiatus, not confirmed, we don't know yet exactly what that looks like. There's probably some way we try to give oxygen to World Cup and what's going on there and have a strategy we fill in all around it for really a great summer football here in Canada."
JH: Is there anything you'd like to add about what's coming up next for the Wanderers?
DM: I'm bullish on our opportunity. I know you mentioned it but I don't know if I answered it: we do have a good spine (of players) returning on the team. We've got some really talented players, some good people, that with the right additions, I think we can be very competitive in 2026.
I do think we're on the cusp on an important time, not only in Canada but in Halifax, around our team performing well on the pitch and us finally getting some resolution to some of the big things off the pitch we've been working on around the stadium and training centre and really just trying to improve the infrastructure we have around not only growing this game but all sport. It remains a core tenet of the whole thing. We're also trying to grow sports, help tie it into provincial health, provincial success, this is the real mandate around what we're trying to do.
I'm excited what the next six months look like for us as we do that. We'll have a new coach, we'll have some excitement around building a new squad and then taking that next step to really solidifying the permanency of what we've been building here for almost a decade.
JH: Perfect, thank you again.
Editor's Note: This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Cover Photo Credit: Trevor MacMillan / Halifax Wanderers FC
