CF Montreal | Saputos, new generation

The young people of the Saputo family are gaining ground at CF Montréal. What are their roles, their ambitions and their vision? For the first time, they answer our questions.

It is well known that each sports club is a “big family”. Except that at CF Montreal, it’s more than a figure of speech. This is reality.

The Saputo family owns the team. Its members sit on the board of directors. Joey Saputo founded the club, in addition to having chaired it for a quarter of a century. His brother-in-law, Raffaele Frassetti, is a scout. His son, Jesse, is a prospect who participated in last training camp. Behind the scenes, two other of his boys, Luca and Simone, multiply important mandates.

They are the ones who welcome me to the team’s training center for a rare interview. The first, in fact, since they worked at the club.

Luca, 27, has just had an intense year. He was part of the quintet that took care of the last transfer window. Among his files, the acquisitions of Tom Pearce and Dawid Bugaj. Simone, 25, worked all summer on restructuring the academy. Both are tripping hard.

This is why the two brothers plan to pursue a career in professional sport. More precisely, at CF Montreal. They have big ambitions. Dreams. A vision, too: to provide an outlet for the best Quebec players.

Forty-five minutes later, I walked out of there with a conviction.

One day, they will be the ones to run the club.

* * *

Luca and Simone both grew up in the Impact environment.

“At 5 years old, we picked up balls during training,” Luca remembers. It was our passion. We always wanted to be around the club. Afterwards, we did internships. Marketing, academy, operations, sports aspect, we really tried everything. »

After earning a master’s degree in international affairs at the University of Miami, in 2020 he joined the club full-time. Simone followed in his footsteps a year later, also after a master’s degree in Miami, in business administration. Luca first went towards the sporting aspect and Simone, towards business.

“When I started,” says Luca, “I analyzed MLS clubs to find out how they spent their money. I was trying to understand how winning teams invested their money in their squad. » He also did a little recruiting. In the summer of 2023, his role has changed. He became responsible for the liaison between CF Montreal and Joey Saputo’s other club, Bologna FC, in the Italian first division. When he is in Europe, he follows the sporting and technical directors Marco Di Vaio and Giovanni Sartori step by step, to learn the ropes of the profession.

During Olivier Renard’s years in Montreal, the two clubs collaborated – with a few arms distance. Luca Saputo makes no secret of it, he wants greater synergy between the two entities.

“I see a lot of potential in this partnership. I’ll give you an example. Our academy. How should we train our young people? At 13, 14, 15, 16 years old, what tools should we use to develop a certain type of player? » For him, Bologna can learn from the experiences of Montreal, and vice versa. There are also gains to be made in terms of recruitment. “By bringing together our two teams, we have a team of 15 recruiters on the ground. We also have three scouts in Bologna and one here in Montreal who do video. It’s super important to centralize recruitment. » To demonstrate his point, he highlights the recent acquisitions of Tom Pearce and Dawid Bugaj, who were first spotted by Bologna scouts.

Simone first joined the business partnerships team. It’s a part that interests him. “It’s very important for the growth of the club,” he insists. Afterwards, we guess that he also wants to get involved in sports, like his older brother. “I like both sides equally, but I certainly like the sporting aspect a lot, because it directly affects the product we put on the field. »

Last summer, he inherited a new sporting mandate: advising President Gabriel Gervais to restructure the academy. “I’m trying to see how we can optimize what we do with our young teams. Not just on the ground. Financially too, so that it continues to be one of the pillars of our organization for the coming years. »

This work led to the abandonment of the under-23 school club.

“Before, we had U23, U17 and U15 teams. Now it’s U18, U16 and U15, and we loan older players to other clubs. It fits better with the needs of our first team. Unfortunately, with the U23s, there weren’t that many players progressing to our first team. » The club has also increased its coverage on its territory. “We are recruiting more in the regions of Quebec. We are more present to see the hopes at a younger age. »

* * *

Luca and Simone Saputo are lucid. Although they have moved up one level at a time, they know full well that they are taking advantage of opportunities that they probably would not have had if their father Joey was not the most important man in history of the club.

The three are very close. They also participate together in MLS governors’ meetings, meetings that the two young men particularly appreciate.

“Our father is a very good role model,” says Luca. He lets us learn. He lets us make our mistakes, but he is there to advise us. When you think about it, he was around my age when he founded the club. No one showed him how to do it. So I feel very privileged to be able to count on him. »

Simone second. “Thirty years of experience within a sports team is valuable. »

During these three decades, the club has experienced highs, but also lows. The organization has experienced its share of crises, often the result of bickering between Joey Saputo and his collaborators. Even today, the Saputo family is the target of complaints from supporters, who accuse it of not investing enough in the workforce. This season, the CFM had the smallest payroll in MLS. I point out to Luca and Simone that the higher they rise within the organization, the more they will be subject to criticism, too. How do they envisage this?

“Since we were young, we have experienced it. We are used to that,” replies Simone. “When I chose to pursue a career in this industry,” continues Luca, “I didn’t do it to become known. Until now, I have always tried to keep a low profile. » This is actually his first interview. “I understand that it comes with business, but everything we try to do is for the good of the club and the sport in Quebec. »

They will repeat this last sentence several times during the interview. For example, when I ask them to present their vision for the club in the long term, assuming that they are destined for greater responsibilities.

“We want to be competitive and win matches,” says Luca. But what also motivates us is the fact that a young person from here can dream of playing professionally at a high level. When I was 10, the academy didn’t exist. The opportunities were not the same as today. »

“Our philosophy,” continues Simone, “is to buy young players and try to resell them. But we also want to add local players, Quebecers, to give them the chance to be part of the first team and to be noticed by the national team. We want to be pillars of the growth of soccer here. »

A speech totally opposed to the persistent rumor of the club moving, which has fueled conversations between supporters for several years. Luca categorically rejects this hypothesis. “Honestly, no. We have a plan to develop the sport here. We are attached to Montreal. We want to be in Montreal. »

On this subject, when it comes to his little brother Jesse, who plays with the Bologna U18 team, Luca confides: “His dream, as a Montrealer and Quebecer who grew up in the academy, is to represent the club here, to play in Montreal in front of his family. » His other brother, Joey, plays for the Quinnipiac University team in the United States.

And what are their personal ambitions within the club?

“I don’t have a particular title in mind. I just want to help the club,” says Luca. Simone insists on the importance of knowing both aspects well, the sporting and the administrative.

Okay, but gentlemen, there is a vacancy in the organization chart. A beautiful one, at that. That of sports director. Luca saw Olivier Renard go into this position. He rubs shoulders with Marco Di Vaio and Giovanni Sartori closely. He touched on recruitment and contract negotiation. Gabriel Gervais involved him in his decision-making quintet of the last transfer window, with Daniel Pozzi, Raffaele Frassetti and Corey Wray. I seem to check several boxes, hence my last question before closing the recorder.

Will you submit your application?

The two brothers look at each other and laugh.

Luca: “This question is for Gabriel. »