OTTAWA – Ottawa Fury FC President and OSEG Partner John Pugh has been re-appointed to the Canada Soccer Board of Directors, Canada Soccer announced following their AGM in Whistler, B.C. Pugh, who has been part of the Canada Soccer Board since 2014, returns to the board for another three-year term.

There was ample news that came from the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Members earlier this month, most notably the election of Steve Reed as the 34th president of Canada Soccer while Nick Bontis has been appointed by the Board as Vice-President.

Pugh’s fingerprints have been all over the Ottawa soccer scene for close to two decades. After purchasing the Ottawa Fury in 2003, then just a single women’s team competing in the W-League, Pugh added a handful of Academy teams along with a men’s team that competed in the Premier Development League. In a few years, the Ottawa Fury Soccer Club housed academy teams for boys and girls from U8 through to U20 complemented by grassroots programming focusing on player development from U4 through U12.

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During his time as owner and CEO, Pugh built the most successful W-League team in North American history that featured Canadian and international talents including Canadian internationals Diana Matheson, Rhian Wilkinson and Robyn Gayle to name a few. With 10 division titles under their belt, the jewel of the W-League finally found its crown in 2012 claiming the W-League Championship.

The PDL program featured some of the top up-and-coming talents in North America that included current members of Ottawa Fury FC Carl Haworth and Jon Barden.

More than 175 youth players that came through the Fury Academy achieved scholarships to NCAA schools – no surprise for an Academy program that was often ranked in the Top-10 in North America in the Super Y-League.

In 2012, Pugh joined the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) partnership and helped bring professional soccer to the nation’s capital. Ottawa Fury FC was born, and after joining the USL prior to the 2017 season is now in its fourth season of action. Along with fellow OSEG partners, Roger Greenberg, John Ruddy, Jeff Hunt and Bill Shenkman, Pugh will be inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame in June 2017.

Outside of soccer, Pugh served as Professor and Director of the School of Computer Science at Carleton University and subsequently he co-founded The Object People Inc., an international provider of computing, e-commerce and web solutions, and over a 10-year period directed the company from start-up to acquisition.