New York International FC Seeks New Home At Con Edison Field | OneFootball

Cosmopolitan Soccer League club New York International FC is aiming to move to a new, more permanent home ground in Queens.

The club has been exploring the possibility of using the Con Edison soccer field, located off 20th Avenue in Astoria, Queens, in the upcoming season, as it returns to the CSL following a spell in the American Professional Soccer League.

The move would be a positive step for the club as it looks to secure a more stable home in the city and find a base for its community work on matchdays.

It would also provide a boost for the CSL, in that the league would be able to boast another club in its divisions that has managed to secure a home field in a city where sports teams can struggle to do so.

As with several teams in the CSL and APSL (the national league to which CSL teams can be promoted), New York International has played at various parks and fields across the city, but though it regularly uses the likes of Randall's Island and Roosevelt Island, it has never really had one single place to call home.

This sort of arrangement can make sense for teams in the amateur and semi-pro leagues, as circumstances can change with regard to playing field arrangements depending on numerous factors, from weather to other events and the general unpredictable nature of New York City life!

Still, the aim for many of these clubs, and indeed those at the professional level, too, is to find a more permanent home, or at least a ground at which they can play more regularly. It's a mark of progress for them to do so.

Even finding an adjacent venue that can act as a kind of clubhouse can also give a semi-pro team a sense of home, and New York International believes they have found both in Astoria with Con Edison Soccer Field and the nearby Rivercrest bar.

The club hosts its events and awards ceremonies at Rivercrest on Ditmars Boulevard. The bar regularly shows soccer matches at various levels across the country and is just a short walk from the soccer field. It even held a watch party of the 2025 USL League Two final between Ballard FC and a team that has many similarities to NYIFC in the way it goes about its business in the community, Vermont Green.

Rivercrest would work well as a pre-match and/or post-match destination for matchdays at the Con Edison ground.

These links with local businesses have grown NYIFC’s reputation throughout the city since the club was formed in 2019. It has earned it a reputation as much as a community organization as a soccer club, and this has expanded internationally to links with clubs such as Clapton CFC in London and ASD Termino in Italy.

Such regular use of the Con Edison soccer field by a community club could encourage further improvements to be made to the facility by its owners, who already work with community groups, primarily the Federation of Italian American Organizations, who make use of this field and organize its week-to-week use.

New York International’s presence would potentially be a boost for the facility, and vice versa.

This is also the kind of local community soccer that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been involved with, even before becoming mayor.

Mamdani once volunteered at the EV Loves NYC soup kitchen, which has developed close ties with New York International FC as the club became part of this system of local mutual aid organizations.

New York International FC is now working with the CSL to approve its use of the field for the new season.