The great asterisk of Catalan football

Barcelona"Official statement: Announcement of the sale of Terrassa FC. The price of the entire shareholding has been set at 1.75 million euros." This statement published by Terrassa FC serves to explain the reality of most professional and semi-professional football clubs in Catalonia: historic entities that were once led by local businessmen, but which in recent years have been forced to sell off, mainly for economic reasons. The rescue has almost always been provided by foreign owners with sufficient capital to buy, but they have not always had the management capacity to refloat them and lead them to a higher level.

What happened to the Egarense team has also been experienced by Espanyol, Girona, Sabadell, and Sant Andreu, which also have a foreign owner. The arrival of Asian, American, and European investors is a growing global trend, and Catalan football is no exception: six of the twelve clubs competing in the four main Spanish football divisions have an investor from another country as their main shareholder. A forced solution, caused by the debts that the local businessmen at the helm were unable to resolve. The economic demands of competing in an increasingly expensive football led them to sell to investors from very diverse backgrounds. The result? There are now more Asian businessmen than Catalans at the helm of the twelve main clubs.

Only four: Barça, Europa, Cornellà, and Olot, remain in the hands of their shareholders. The first three are non-profit sports entities, while the Garrotxa team stipulated, when it became a sports public limited company (SAE), that no partner or company could control more than 10% of the shares. They are the resistance of Catalan football.

Espanyol was experiencing a critical situation for the high historical debt that it was dragging before Chen Yansheng's arrival. Rastar Group will increase its stake in the club to over €200 million this summer when it capitalizes a €42 million participating loan. Girona, for its part, abandoned judicial guardianship and emerged from bankruptcy proceedings just a year and a half before the sale to City Football Group. Both groups cleaned up their respective clubs, which tasted European football and suffered relegation during their tenures.

Returning to professional football is the long-awaited goal of the First and Second Federation clubs. Nàstic de Tarragona is the only one of the twelve clubs headed by a Catalan businessman, Josep Maria Andreu. The former president of the Garnet team is the club's main shareholder, 40.5% of which is held by members, who hold stakes of less than 5%. Behind Andrés is the Swedish businessman Fredrik Wester. The owner of the Paradox Interactive group has already invested 7 million to help the club escape a loss-making division and return to the Second Division within three to five years. He chose Nàstic because he considered it "a model team, with leadership, prestige, and history." His is an atypical case, as he has repeatedly stated that he does not aspire to a majority stake.

Europe leads Group 3 of the Second Federation. Behind them is Sant Andreu, who have in Taito Suzuki, owner of Taica Corporation, as the majority shareholderThe Japanese billionaire bought the club three months after becoming its main sponsor. "Our ambition is to advance to the professional ranks, but all of this takes a process and we don't set deadlines. The local club will continue to be very important," he explained at his presentation.

Greece and the United States play the Vallecas derby

In 2021, Greek businessman Constantinos Tsakiris arrived in Terrassa. The former president of Panionios FC and owner of the Paradise Navigation boat company has been making various contributions, worth between 1.2 and 2 million euros, to offset losses and strengthen the squad, which is seeking to return to the bronze category after fifteen years. The club was refounded by the critical financial situation suffered with the relegation to the Third Division in 2010. The irregular results, which have distanced the team from the play-off promotion, coupled with impatience among fans, have led shareholders to want to sell the club.

Also in the Vallès Occidental, Sabadell debuted under ownership last summer, after relegation to the Second Division. American Adam Rosthein, co-founder of Disruptive Technologies Partners, arrived at the Creu Alta, where the last decade has seen a Japanese owner, Keisuke Sakamoto, and another Catalan, Esteve Calzada, now CEO of Al-Hilal. Rosthein's plan involves seeking new sources of financing, such as concerts, that provide income and ensure stable and sustainable growth: "We want to create a virtuous circle that allows us to promote the club and attract more people to follow us."

The current situation for CF Badalona Futuro is more delicate, occupying the relegation zone. Since January, the owner has been Sedrak Petrosyan, a businessman of Armenian origin who acquired the club for one euro in exchange for assuming a debt of 600,000 euros. The founder of Petrosyan Group has investments in various sectors and is the developer of an urban development complex, Barcelona District, in New Tashkent, a new city to be developed in Uzbekistan. His objective? "To consolidate and propel the club toward ambitious goals with the support and collaboration of the Premià de Dalt City Council and the Premià de Dalt CE."

Lleida CF resurrected thanks to Luis Pereira, a former Galician footballer who had played in the First Division with Celta Vigo and made his fortune as a businessman in Switzerland. Pereira, who also runs a player representation agency, saved the club from demise, which was saddled with huge debts. Further down the league, in the Catalan Third Division, is Inter Barcelona, ​​a club founded in 2023 by Xuandong Ren, a Chinese businessman who was CEO of Birmingham City until 2021, and who created this club after exploring the purchase of various semi-professional entities. He started in the lowest division, but yearns to reach professional football one day. "I'm not saying we'll replicate what Luton Town in England has achieved—they went from the Fifth Division to the Premier League—but we'll try. It should be an aspiration for us to reach as high as possible," explained a few years ago to ARAFrom Ren to Yansheng, via Suzuki, Tsakiris and Rothstein: they are the new owners of Catalan football.