CF Montréal Are for Sale, and Saputo Won't Make Staying in Montreal a Condition

Joey Saputo wants CF Montréal to stay in Montreal. He just won't promise it. Announcing Monday that his family has started a formal process to sell the club after more than three decades of ownership, Saputo told reporters at Stade Saputo that keeping the team in the city will not be a condition of the sale.

"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," Saputo said, according to Global News.

French-language broadcaster RDS added that he has no intention of offering a discount to a group simply because it is from Québec. In the club's own statement, the stated priority is to give "the right Québec-based investors" a chance to come forward. BMO Capital Markets is the lead financial advisor, with National Bank of Canada Capital Markets as co-advisor, and the process will run in coordination with MLS.

Saputo insisted that money was not the reason. "The financial status of the family or the club as such was never in question," he said. "I wasn't looking for partners because I didn't need partners."

The timing is hard to separate from the results, even if Saputo tried. Montreal finished last in the Eastern Conference with six wins, 20 losses and eight draws, the worst season of its MLS era, and lost the Canadian Championship final to Forge FC of the lower-tier Canadian Premier League. Frustrated supporters boycotted games late in the year.

"It's not the past season that we had, or wasn't one particular event," Saputo said in his first Montreal media appearance since 2022. "There comes a certain point when you say, you know what, I've done everything that I could possibly do and it's time to pass the torch."

The bigger issue may be the building. MLS moves to a summer-to-spring calendar in 2028, after the 2027 sprint season, and Global News noted that Stade Saputo is not winterized. The Olympic Stadium next door, under renovation, could eventually be an option, but it is still years from hosting events.

Saputo said his family will keep working on an Olympic Park lease and on the bid to bring Canada Soccer's National Training Centre to Montreal, which could become the club's new home. Forbes valued the franchise at $440 million in February, and Montreal is the second Canadian MLS club put on the market after Vancouver began its own sale process in December 2024.

Until a buyer appears, nothing changes day to day: president Gabriel Gervais and managing directors Luca and Simone Saputo stay in their roles. But for the first time, a Montreal MLS fan has to consider that the next owner might not be from Montreal, and might not keep the club there.