CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie is in no hurry to offload the Montreal Alouettes.
The league confirmed the Montreal Alouette Football Club Company has been sold to the CFL, effective last Friday.
Over recent months, the CFL and Wetenhall family had been working to identify and assess potential new owners and that process is ongoing. To facilitate the process, the CFL has been involved in the club’s day-to-day operations through that period.
Bob and Andrew Wetenhall owned the Alouettes for a 22-year-span that included three Grey Cup championships, 10 first-place finishes and a record of 223 wins against 172 losses and one tie. Eleven Alouettes have been inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame during their tenure, including Bob Wetenhall himself, as a builder, in 2015.
Wetenhall brought the Alouettes back from the brink of insolvency in 1997. He was responsible for the team’s successful relocation to Percival Molson Stadium and eventually expansion while overseeing the team’s run of dominance from 1999 to 2012.
The team has fallen on hard times in recent years, missing the playoffs for four straight seasons, the longest streak in franchise history. The Alouettes have struggled at the gate as well as fans have tired of the perpetual on-field ineptitude.
There have been multiple buyers who have shown varying degrees of interest in owning the Alouettes, but a match has yet to be found.
