CF Montreal president Gabriel Gervais raised concerns on Tuesday about the club’s viability when Major League Soccer switches to a winter schedule next year, saying that it is contingent on the Olympic Stadium being available to them.

The Olympic Stadium’s roof is undergoing an $870 million renovation project after years of deterioration, but to the shock of many, the inside of the stadium is not getting a facelift. In order for the stadium to be useable for CF Montreal’s purposes, the the Government of Quebec needs to spend the money to renovate the interior too.

The former home of the Montreal Expos and Montreal Alouettes has hosted select CF Montreal games in the past, and hosted the Summer Olympics 50 years ago this summer. It is nicknamed the Big O, often changed to Big Owe because of the billions of dollars that have been spent on building and maintaining it.

Gervais met the media as part of an announcement that the Northern Super League’s Montreal Roses will play a game at Stade Saputo in August, something that could happen more frequently in the future with the MLS club not using it for a lot of the NSL season.

One of the bigger stories from Gervais’ availability, though, was his own club’s future.

“For the moment, we don’t have a clear vision of the timeline or the work that will take place inside the stadium and that worries us, to be frank with you,” Gervais said. “We need that information to be able to plan responsibly for the long term and to ensure the sporting and financial viability of the club.”

The reason CF Montreal would need to move to the Olympic Stadium for at least some of their matches is that MLS is changing their schedule next year to align with the global soccer calendar.

Instead of playing through the warm North American summers, MLS is opting to play over the winter months instead beginning with the 2027-28 season. That’s great if you’re a club in the southern portion of the United States, but for the Canadian clubs and northern clubs, it could prove to be a logistical nightmare with heavy snowfall.

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Montreal is perhaps in an envious position with the fact that they have a mostly-empty stadium solution a few hundred metres away from Stade Saputo for those games in the middle of the winter. Fall and spring soccer under the Montreal sky at their current stadium would still be possible, but some months are going to be blanketed in snow and freezing cold temperatures.

Gervais previously said himself that the club is exploring a “hybrid solution”.

“We are continuing the discussions, and we believe we have a very real solution at the Olympic Stadium,” Gervais added. “With the schedule change, it’s no secret that we need a stadium with a covered roof but we’re working to be able to stay here in Montreal.”

That last line will send shivers down the spines of Canadian soccer fans, who are already facing the possibility of the Vancouver Whitecaps moving to Las Vegas amid stadium and ownership issues of their own.

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