Impact Petition On Name Change Passes 5,000

A petition launched on January 17 by Ultras Montreal 2002 Fan Group has just passed 5,000 signatures, its initial target.

The list of signatures is aimed at CF Montreal owner Joey Saputo and President & CEO Kevin Gilmore, and is designed to put pressure on the football club to revert back to its former name, Impact de Montreal.

The Ultras feel a sense of betrayal over the name-change due to lack of consultation with either them, players, former players or the fanbase in general.

The petition states, ‘The abandonment of the name “Montreal Impact” causes a rift between the supporters and their club’, and that, ‘... replacing it with a generic name without originality, adding insult to injury, indeed provides a cold, empty and boring commercial rebranding.’

It closes by saying: ‘We hope that management will quickly come back to this change in order to reconnect with common sense. Come on the Impact! Yesterday, today and forever!’
A statement from the group dated 21 January concluded in a final paragraph stating; ‘However it is not to late to retract and make the right choice. Therefore we are asking the authors of the name-change to respond with sensitivity towards their supporters and to backtrack on this decision. We hope to continue IMFC’s history which must subsist.

‘We are and always will be faithful supporters of Impact de Montreal.’

Also in a tweet, they also seemed to pour scorn on some MLS-compiled numbers released in La Presse today displaying that only 35% of comments from Quebecers on social media were negative in the wake of re-branding, meaning that 65% were either positive or neutral. In the same data set, negative foreign comments amounted to 15%, although 75% of that sample was neutral.

Ultras Montreal 2002 has agreed to speak with mountroyalsoccer.com in the coming days to reflect upon reaching over 5,000 signatures against the club’s renaming.

CF Montreal will also be contacted for their reaction

The Ultras and other complementary groups generally fill a section behind the West Stand at Stade Saputo that seats around 500 spectators.