Days after Ottawa joined the Canadian Premier League fold, commissioner David Clanachan spoke for one of the first times since the announcement when he joined the Footy Prime podcast on Monday.

Club Atlético de Madrid brought professional soccer back to the nation’s capital last week, adding a CPL club for the 2020 season.

Clanachan detailed Club Atlético de Madrid’s entrance into the Ottawa market with host James Sharman, former Toronto FC forward Danny Dichio, and OneSoccer broadcaster and former Canadian international Terry Dunfield.

Asked about who spurred the idea of bringing a CPL club to Ottawa for 2020, Clanachan mentioned league partner MediaPro, the Spain-based broadcaster behind OneSoccer.

“They were intrigued with a whiteboard [of Canadian soccer],” Clanachan said. “We don’t have 100 years of history … As they stepped in and started watching, they were more and more intrigued by how we were doing things.”

Clanachan also confirmed the league was not looking at altering international rules in 2020, with seven foreign players allowed on each of the eight Year 2 clubs.

When it comes to Ottawa, the commissioner claimed Club Atlético de Madrid would have a strong Canadian focus as well.

“Not once has anyone from Atlético ever said they wanted to change our rules on player content,” Clanachan added. “There are 16 Canadians on the roster. We don’t see changing that at this point in time. We don’t need to.”

Listen to the podcast here.