"I will not discount the club to the point of just giving it away just for the sake of giving it away," CF Montréal owner Joey Saputo said. "I want to be perfectly clear. I love this club. I would love this club to stay here."
"I will not discount the club to the point of just giving it away just for the sake of giving it away," CF Montréal owner Joey Saputo said. "I want to be perfectly clear. I love this club. I would love this club to stay here."
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Joey Saputo, the businessman who helped put Montreal on North America's soccer map, announced Monday that he wants to sell CF Montréal, setting the stage for the end of more than three decades of his family's involvement in the club.
Speaking at a press conference at Stade Saputo, the stadium that bears his family's name, Saputo said: "We believe this is the right time to welcome a new ownership group with the resources, the vision, and commitment to build on the strong foundation we have established and carry forward the club's proud legacy."
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He did not rule out selling to an out-of-town buyer who could relocate the club.
"The sale is not to look for a partner. I don't need a partner. The sale is because I want to sell the club," he said. "I would love for the club to stay here in Montreal. But if the club doesn't find a local buyer and I get an offer and the club needs to be relocated, then I have no choice and that's the decision I will take."
He would also not say what price he was seeking. This year, Forbes valued CF Montréal at US$440 million, the lowest of MLS's 30 clubs.
"I will not discount the club to the point of just giving it away just for the sake of giving it away," he said. "I want to be perfectly clear. I love this club. I would love this club to stay here."
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Saputo said the sale had nothing to do with Bologna, the Italian club he also owns.
"I have been focused on establishing the conditions necessary to position CF Montréal for long-term success both on and off the field," he said. "Today, we have a much clearer path forward, anchored by two critical strategic priorities: securing a sustainable future at the Olympic Stadium, and in our pursuit of Canada's soccer national training centre in Montreal."
"Major League Soccer is aware of the announcement that I'm making today. This is not a surprise to them. We'll work with them," he added. "The process will take what the process will take. I made it very, very clear that we're going to continue to run the club. We have a spring season that's coming."
The announcement comes at a bleak moment for the club, which just endured its worst season since joining Major League Soccer in 2012. CF Montréal finished at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with only six wins and 26 points in 34 games, ending its campaign with a 2-0 home defeat to the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday.
Two of the club's main supporters' groups withdrew from its final two home games, while a defeat to Forge FC, a lower-division side, in the Canadian Championship final in October added to the frustration.
It is a far cry from the ambitions of the Saputo family when it established the Montreal Impact in 1992. The club began playing the following year, long before Major League Soccer arrived in the city, and helped turn what had been a relatively modest professional soccer scene into one capable of attracting international stars and crowds of thousands.
Saputo was instrumental in bringing the team into MLS in 2012. He oversaw the construction of Stade Saputo four years earlier. The club subsequently reached the final of the CONCACAF Champions League in 2015 and enjoyed its best MLS regular season in 2022.
But recent years have brought repeated changes of coach, disappointing results and tensions with supporters, some of whom have never forgiven the decision to abandon the Impact name in favour of CF Montréal in 2021.
Saputo insisted his drive had not faded, but acknowledged the club had fallen short.
"I never lost the fire. I'm a competitor and I want to win," he said. "But also you have to do it within the context of what you're working within. We said that we wanted to be competitive. Unfortunately, if we need to go back to the results, we were not as competitive as we thought we could be."