Lleida, a city divided over its football field

BarcelonaBeing a football fan in Lleida has become an act of faith in recent years. In 2011, the historic Unió Esportiva Lleida disappeared, drowned by debt, and in its place was born Lleida Esportiu, heir to that tradition but with a short and eventful life. Now it plays in the Second RFEF, accompanied by a loyal fan base that lives with dismay the club's confrontation with the Paeria, the city council. A series that is talked about in the courts, the municipal plenary sessions and the streets.

To understand the current conflict, we must look at a not-too-distant past, when Lleida Esportiu was in the hands of the brothers Albert and Jordi Esteve. Their management caused several problems, such as complaints from players for non-payments and debts with the Treasury and Social Security. All of this seemed to lead to a new financial bankruptcy of the club. And it generated problems with the City Council. From the Paeria they saw how the Esteve management meant that the Sports Field, owned by the municipality, was not taken care of and some agreements stipulated in the agreement signed by both parties were breached. At the end of January 2022, the municipal plenary session of La Paeria – where Miquel Pueyo, from ERC, was then in charge – voted unanimously to withdraw the concession of the stadium from the club. Inside the Sports Field there were bird nests, areas where no one cleaned for months and parts of the offices, such as the museum, with trophies and objects, where objects had disappeared. But there was something else behind the decision to break the agreement, as Marc Torres, currently deputy president of the club, explains: "The decision was also taken for reasons of general interest. Because of the bad image that it gave the city to have a club where a few months earlier the Civil Guard had entered the offices, with directors charged with falsifying documents, fraud." At that time there was a consensus among all the political parties and the fans that things had to change.

The problem is that the agreement to terminate the contract for the Campo de Deportes was made public on January 28, 2022, and two days earlier, on the 26th, the Esteves had sold the club to former player Luis Pereira, a Galician businessman turned businessman in Switzerland. Pereira, who had played for Lleida, took over a club in debt and began to get the club back on its feet. "They didn't give us time to explain our project. We entered the club and had to file an appeal against the club to kick Lleida out of the field administratively and judicially. If they kick us out of the Camp d'Esports, the club will die, because there is no other stadium that meets the necessary conditions," says Torres. The club filed an administrative appeal on July 11, 2022, but almost three years later, on February 4, 2025, the administrative court notified the dismissal of its appeal in favor of the City Council, although it is not yet a final judgment because the club continues to fight it. In Lleida they believe that the City Council wants to kick them out of the Sports Field. The City Council does not categorically deny it. What happened?

The change of city hall

In 2023, the socialist Fèlix Larrosa returns to the Paeria, because he had already been mayor from 2018 to 2019. The change of government came just when the new board was having talks with the City Council that seemed to be going well to sign a new agreement and stop the fight in court. "In the first meeting with Larrosa, in January 2024, six months after his entry into the City Council, he asked us how we could resolve the issue of the agreement being in court. We said that we were interested in a new long-term agreement to manage the stadium, we explained to him how we were looking after the club and we presented a legal report to offer him. And we showed that the club was doing well. "But he didn't want to listen to us anymore," he adds.

The situation was even more complex because there is another player: Atlètic Lleida. This young club is currently playing in the Tercera RFEF, just one category below Lleida Esportiu. In fact, they are aiming for promotion, which could lead to an unprecedented derby next season. This Club Deportivo Atlético Lleida is derived from Atlético Segre, a local youth club, and also from the Almacelles club, EFAC. Both entities joined forces in 2019, with people from the local football scene behind them, such as Siscu Pujol, the man who had once won the auction of the sporting rights of UE Lleida and who became the first president of the new entity before parting ways with the Esteves, then his partners. Pujol himself ended up on the board of directors of Barça with Joan Laporta, by the way. The result was a conglomerate of businessmen prepared to present a new modern club in the city that should have a clear path to be the main representative of football in the city when it was believed that, with the Esteves in the box, Lleida would disappear. But the opposite happened, it revived with Luis Pereira. If the majority of local fans recognise Lleida as the heir of the old UE Lleida, the city council "takes more care of the new Atlético Lleida", according to Marc Torres.

Atlètic Lleida wants to make a name for itself in professional football and last year it was negotiating with Badalona Futur, a club from the Second RFEF, to buy its place or merge. In February 2024, there was even a Lleida-Badalona Futur game at the Camp d'Esports in which the board of the visiting club, including the former Barça candidate Toni Freixa, were accompanied by the people of Atlético Lleida. There were insults, reproaches and dialectical fights in the stands that day. The fans showed banners with slogans such as "One club, one city" on a day that is still remembered. The board of Lleida felt that the new club was working with the City Council to harm them. Atlético Lleida, which in the end did not make any deal with Badalona Futur, claims its right to play at the Camp d'Esports if it were to achieve promotion to the same category as Lleida.

"On February 13, we received a surprise email from the Councilor for Sports, Jackson Quiñónez (the former Olympic athlete born in Ecuador), summoning us to a meeting at 12 noon. But in the agenda of events we saw that at 10 am a press conference was scheduled for the agreement that had already been approved, without negotiating it with us, it was a lack of respect," Torres complains. "The mayor then said that he wanted to execute the decision to leave the previous agreement without value as soon as possible, although since it is in court without a final judgment, he cannot do so. In fact, the reason for which the termination of the agreement was executed at the time in 2022 is no longer valid. of local grassroots football. He sold that Lleida should be happy because the new agreement involves zero cost and the ticket offices and the bar could be used on match day. Larrosa denies it: "We want Lleida CF to continue at the Camp d'Esports. This is the only solution that has been found, it is a guarantee agreement because what we want is to help the club. We have wanted to do this from day one," he says. The fans do not believe him and have already demonstrated twice.

"Seeing how quickly they are, it is clear that they want to favour the only club in the city that has asked and might want to ask to play at the Campo de Deportes. They favour Atlético," explains Torres. An Atlético that is currently fighting for direct promotion to the Second RFEF. Lleida has even filed a complaint in the court on duty for influence peddling and document falsification against the mayor, the councillor and other people, since they consider it proven that Larrosa's chief of staff is Xavier Batalla, who was a director of Atlético Lleida. "He took up the municipal post in November 2023 and did not leave the club until March 2024. In June 2024, when the former sports director of Badalona Futuro Lucas Viale signed for Sabadell, he still thanked Batalla for everything he had done for him the previous season, when they were negotiating to unite the clubs," says Torres. In Lleida, it is suspected that Batalla continued working for Atlético when he was already in charge of the municipality. "This benefits this club. That is why there is a rush to end the current agreement, which is still being challenged in court, and present this new agreement that opens the door to the Campo de Deportes for Atlético. The stadium that has been the home of Lleida since 1945. The opposition groups tell us that they do not understand the mayor's rush and they defend us. In the city, demonstrations have been seen at the entrance to the stadium and in the city centre. The atmosphere in local football has become tense, waiting to see what happens with the agreement, the stadium and whether a derby will be played next year. And where it would be played, of course.