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Inter Toronto: On A New Look, Lamport, And Lack Of Nine Stripes
By Last night saw Inter Toronto FC unveil itself to the footballing world, marking the club’s second rebrand in five seasons. The club is seven seasons old.
As a stark departure from York Region to Toronto, it is the arguably the most divisive of the rebrands, but its a move that ownership says will ensure growth and sustainability while – if all goes to plan – making the club known to the Toronto sporting community at large, a proverbial nut it wasn’t able to crack under the York moniker.
Having transitioned from York9 FC to York United under previous ownership, and now York United to Inter Toronto under the current owners, the third brand is both a thematic and visual departure from the proverbial ‘York days’: green is gone, and long live blue.
It goes without saying that one cannot call itself a Toronto team if one does not play in Toronto proper. Since kicking off in 2019, the CPL side has called York Lions Stadium home. A stone’s throw from the Vaughan border, its location itself echoes the half-and-half approach to covering both York Region and Toronto whilst not fully satisfying either.
The venue has struggled to pull in good numbers and has led to some brand confusion for a professional team operating out of a university-based venue. Staying there was always meant to be temporary, and while the club will remain there for 2026, it is making progress towards a long-planned move out from YLS.
The future of Inter Toronto FC lies with Lamport Stadium, just north of Toronto FC’s BMO Field and accessible by streetcar due to its proximity to downtown. There’s plenty to see, eat, and drink around the stadium, though the structure itself needs some love.
The Pasquels are in discussions with the City of Toronto about that, and the talks of Inter Toronto calling it home appear to trending towards a when, not an if, even if the broader details haven’t been etched in yet.
“There’s no specific timeline. The best way I can put it is that the city wants us there, and we want to be there. It’s just a matter of logistics,” says Club President Ricardo Pasquel, who says they’re still finalizing the amount of investment and the studies to be done.
Members of the City of Toronto were present at the event, where Mayor Chow appeared on video to wish the club success in its new identity.
“Being a Toronto kid, I’m very familiar with Lamport,” says midfielder Max Ferrari, who has now been with the club through all three of its brand identities.
“I played there growing up. I watched TFC2 play there growing up. It’s something that I’m familiar with, and it being close to BMO Field, that area is amazing. I think it’s a great idea to get people and fans in the stands, so I’m very excited to move there.”
Ricardo says that while there are big challenges, the sky is the limit. He wants to see the club grow from every perspective, be that winning titles on the pitch, to the fanbase, the commercial side, and the club’s planned expansion of its academy system, all hinging on a future move to the Toronto core.
The Canadian Premier League was supportive of the Pasquels’ vision. That’s a good thing, because a lot is riding on the eventual transition from the city’s fringe to its very core: if a CPL team can’t succeed in a sports-mad Toronto market, that would be a grim reflection on a league that has already taken a fair share of bruises.
After all, it was just one week ago that Valour FC shut its doors after years of relative apathy from owners Winnipeg Football Group. If those owners could be described as stagnant, the Pasquels are anything but: love it or hate it, they are betting on their own efforts to grow Inter Toronto FC into something bigger than they felt they could with York United.
“Even though the baddest situation happened [with Valour], the league is in a better state than it has ever been,” adds Ricardo, who grew up in a family environment of high level club operations, having family members who have owned teams like Liga MX side Club Necaxa, or an uncle being the President of Club America. The Pasquel brothers’ own father had served as Mexican Football Federation’s General Secretary and CFO.
Every night, the family dinner table chatter would predictably settle on one thing: football. Their grandparents were in it, their parents were in it. Now, the trio of brothers are forging their own path in the family tradition, as it were.
The building blocks for Inter Toronto began not long after the Pasquels purchased York United, and what eventually became the new brand went through several shapes. Ricardo says they interviewed several marketing agencies before landing on the winner, after which they sought help from the club’s internal marketing team, too.
While the initial drafts of the club were black-and-yellow, Ricardo says the evolution and introduction of blue was an organic process that eventually introduced blue as the team’s primary colour.
“The colours represents the flag of Toronto, the Three Rivers, also the lands in the entire lake, it was months-and-months of hard work. At the end of the day, it feels very Toronto,” adds Ricardo.
That’s a sentiment that was important to Robert Marchese, the creative director and content lead for Inter Toronto. When he began researching for the rebrand, the storyline for 1834 – when the Town of York incorporated as the City of Toronto – stood out to him immediately.
“That’s the kind of story we wanted to tell,” says Rob. “It fits perfectly with what we’re trying to do, right? The reason that York changed to Toronto in the past was because they had ambition to create a bigger and better city. I think for us it was the same thing: to keep building and keep pushing the club forward.”
Marchese, who was a key part of the previous rebranding of York9 FC to York United, admits he felt that the prior rebrand not including Toronto in its name was ultimately an impediment to its growth, particularly when it came to catching the eye sports fans and capturing the buzz of Toronto itself.
“When the Pasquels came forward and said they want to have Toronto in the name, I was always on board because it always felt like we were chasing ghosts a little bit with York,” he says.
“As far as the colours go, it was always blue for me. It had to be there. When you look around the city, it was one thing when we changed from York9 FC to York United, a lot of our thought process there was that we needed blue. It’s part of the city’s culture. I feel like Torontonians really resonate it, even aside from all the sport teams here that are blue, there’s so many visual and symbolic things in the city that are blue. The city flags are blue, the street signs are blue, the lakes are blue, the government branding is blue. The colour blue really resonates with the city, so I really wanted the brand reflect and connect with the city in a way that felt natural.”
With this being the club’s second rebrand in its first seven seasons, supporters can be forgiven for being tired of the ongoing identity crisis, particularly when the part they identify with is being packed into a box. At tonight’s event, York United supporters could be found outside the venue, holding firmly to a flag that asked a bold question: “We respect our history. Will you?”
We asked Ricardo what he could say to fans who are hesitant to accept not only the shift in branding, but a shift in geographic representation too. He says that he has had conversation both virtual and in-person with the fans and that there was a dialogue – though supporters’ group Northern Corridor have a very different opinion.
“What irks me most is the lack of respect the owners have shown the supporters since they’ve taken over,” says a day-one supporter who has been through it all. “Is there an ownership group in the CPL that has had less interactions with their club’s SG than York?”
Ricardo is hoping that York United fans will see not only his vision for Inter Toronto, but its necessity.
“Being in York right now, in York University, it’s hard for us to grow – and hopefully you guys understand that,” says Ricardo. “Being in Toronto, how can we not take this opportunity and embrace it?”
Whether existing fans will is one question, and whether new fans churn up because of it is another thing entirely. Whatever happens, Inter Toronto FC is marching onwards into a new cityscape, a new chapter, and a completely revamped identity – though the clock is ticking for the home grounds to follow the name.
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Header Image Photo Courtesy Canadian Premier League
