Skip to main content

The magical story of Real Oviedo

In 2012 I had an audience with the now King of Spain who was announced in the audience chamber as Prince of Asturias which is the title given to the crown prince, i.e., the equivalent of Prince of Wales.  We discussed world affairs rather than football.   Asturias is in northern Spain and is known for its verdant hills and valleys.

In the autumn of 2012, Real Oviedo confronted a winding-up order. The team had become trapped in the regionalised third tier, their treasury empty. They were almost €2million short of what they needed to stay alive, €4million shy of making it to the end of that season. 

At that point, loyalists galvanised, putting their energies and their names into a huge global share issue. The faces of the campaign would be, above all, Cazorla, his fellow Oviedo academy alumnus Juan Mata, who was fresh from winning the Champions League with Chelsea, and the striker Michu, then scoring freely for Swansea City in the Premier League. 

Tens of thousands of sympathisers in more than 60 countries, roused by the urgent crisis of a provincial club that had bred such a concentration of talent, bought shares priced at just over €10 each.

Once the initial target for immediate survival had been reached, the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, then regarded as the world’s richest individual, matched the sum raised. “Thank goodness,” Cazorla reflected to The Times. “We were very close to disappearing completely. By getting together, we saved what was left of the club.”

The legacy of that episode is a secure future and, since the 2023 investment of Pachuca — whose principal football interest is Pachuca of Mexico, runners-up at last year’s Intercontinental Cup — a very modern model, in that it looks a blueprint for multi-club resource-sharing between Latin America and Asturias.

Oviedo are a few steps still from achieving a mission that, through the past quarter-century, mostly seemed implausible.   They are in contention for promotion to the top division of Spanish football, from where the club last fell 24 years ago. Oviedo are on the cusp of the play-off positions,


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned.  He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long.  What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do
Post a Comment
Read more