Ottawa CFL expansion team names Marcel Desjardins at its general manager

OTTAWA – The Ottawa CFL expansion team named Marcel Desjardins as its general manager Wednesday.

Desjardins joins the yet unnamed Ottawa franchise after serving the last four seasons as the assistant general manager of the Montreal Alouettes.

Desjardins, a native of Burlington, Ont., served as the general manager of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2007 before returning to Montreal the following season.

“On behalf of the Montreal Alouettes, I first want to congratulate Marcel for obtaining the job in Ottawa and second, to thank him for a fantastic job in the way he has serviced the Montreal Alouettes,” Montreal GM Jim Popp said in a statement. “Marcel is a real hero in the organization who doesn’t get nearly enough thank yous that should go his way.”

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The hiring of Desjardins in Ottawa is hardly a surprise as he’s been mentioned as a leading candidate for the GM post for roughly the last eight months.

It’s the second significant blow this off-season to the Alouettes football operations department.

Earlier this month, head coach Marc Trestman left Montreal to become head coach of the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

Desjardins, 46, also spent time working in the CFL’s head office in Toronto from 1994 to ’99.

The Ottawa franchise is slated to begin play in 2014 and Desjardins will have plenty of work ahead of him.

Ottawa will select four NCAA underclassmen in this year’s CFL draft before participating in December in a three-round expansion draft of players made available from the existing eight clubs. Then in 2014, the club will take part in the league’s Canadian college draft

Ottawa has been without a CFL franchise since 2006 when the Renegades were suspended after four seasons by the league because of financial instability. The Renegades were born seven years after the storied Ottawa Rough Riders folded operations.

The new Ottawa franchise will operate with a new name, as a condition of the city’s return to the CFL was that the new club not use the Rough Riders team name.