Saputo Family Opens Formal Sale of CF Montréal

Joey Saputo has opened a formal process to sell CF Montréal, the Major League Soccer club said on 9 November 2026, ending more than three decades of Saputo family stewardship. BMO Capital Markets is lead financial adviser, with National Bank of Canada Capital Markets as co-adviser, and the sale will be run in coordination with MLS.

Key facts

• The club announced the sale process on 9 November 2026, after more than 30 years of Saputo family involvement in professional soccer in Montréal, dating to 1993.
• BMO Capital Markets is lead financial adviser. National Bank of Canada Capital Markets is co-adviser.
• The club's priority is to give Québec-based investors the chance to come forward, with the process run in coordination with Major League Soccer.
• Day-to-day operations are unchanged. President and chief executive Gabriel Gervais and managing directors Luca Saputo and Simone Saputo remain in place.
• Saputo did not publish an asking price. At a news conference he said he would not discount the club simply to keep it in Montréal, and did not rule out a relocation if no suitable local buyer emerged, according to Sports Business Journal.

Since 1993 Saputo family involvement in professional soccer in Montréal, with the club joining MLS as the Montreal Impact in 2012.No price stated The official release and subsequent remarks did not include an asking price or a completed sale.Advisers appointed BMO Capital Markets leads the process, with National Bank of Canada Capital Markets as co-adviser, in coordination with MLS.

What Saputo has put on the market

This is a sale process, not a closed transaction. The club's statement frames the decision as a planned succession rather than a distress sale. Saputo said the club is "stable, well positioned and part of a growing league and market," and pointed to "a clearer path forward, particularly with the Olympic Stadium and in our pursuit of Canada Soccer's National Training Centre."

The family also said it would make "a substantial investment" in the effort to bring that national training centre to Montréal. If awarded, the club said, the centre could become a new home for CF Montréal, its academies, Soccer Québec and its regional associations. The official release did not put a figure on that investment. Sports Business Journal, reporting on the same announcement, said the proposed facility has been costed in a range of $177m to $212m and that Canada Soccer opened a competitive process to choose a location and development partner in June 2026.

The sporting backdrop is weaker than the ownership timeline. Canadian Press reported that Montréal finished last in the Eastern Conference in 2026 with six wins, 20 losses and eight draws, and lost the Canadian Championship final to Forge FC. Those results are context for buyer diligence. They are not, on the club's own account, the stated reason for the sale.

Why the process is commercially delicate

MLS club sales are not open-market auctions. Any buyer needs league approval, and any move out of Montréal would be a relocation, not a routine transfer of shares. Sports Business Journal noted that no MLS club has relocated since the original San Jose Earthquakes franchise moved to Houston in 2006, and that a relocation would likely require a fee agreed by the league's board of governors.

That is why Saputo's news-conference remarks matter as much as the press release. He said he would "love for the club to stay here in Montreal," but added that if no local buyer appeared and he received an offer that required relocation, "that is the decision I would take." He also said he would "not discount the club to the point of just giving it away just for the sake of giving it away." The official statement still lists Québec-based investors as the priority. The spoken caveat is that a local preference is not the same as a price floor of zero.

No official valuation accompanied the launch. Sports Business Journal said several 2026 media rankings placed CF Montréal last among MLS clubs, in a range of about $430m to $440m. Those are third-party estimates, not a figure from Saputo, BMO or the league, and they should not be read as the sale price. For a sense of how listed and privately negotiated football prices diverge, see the site's guides to clubs listed on the stock exchange and to the most expensive completed takeovers.

Stadium economics will sit in any bid book. CF Montréal plays most matches at the 19,619-seat Stade Saputo and has explored greater use of the neighbouring Olympic Stadium as MLS prepares to move to a summer-to-spring calendar in 2027. Sports Business Journal reported that Québec is spending $616m to replace the Olympic Stadium roof, with completion expected in 2028, while further interior renovation funding has not been finalised. A buyer is therefore pricing a club, a calendar change and an unfinished venue strategy at the same time.

Bologna is not part of this process

TSN, reporting the Montréal announcement, noted that Saputo remains owner of Bologna, the Serie A club he bought in 2014. The CF Montréal sale as described on 9 November 2026 is a single-club process in MLS, not a sale of that Italian holding.

What happens next

The advisers will now test whether a Québec-based buyer can meet both the family's price expectations and MLS ownership tests. If that search fails, the relocation remarks become the central commercial question, and any such move would have to clear the league as well as local politics. Management remains in place while that work runs, which is the usual way to protect season operations during a structured sale.

Open-ended sale processes can still collapse. English examples on this site, from the Everton sale and Friedkin's £800m asking price to takeovers that never completed, show how asking prices, league approvals and buyer financing often matter more than the initial announcement. CF Montréal has started that clock. It has not yet sold the club.

Sources: CF Montréal official announcement, 9 November 2026, MLS.com, Sports Business Journal, Canadian Press via CBC, TSN.