The second death of a Catalan football legend

LleidaJust as Lleida is enjoying a golden era for its basketball, with Hiopos in the First Division making its arena a fortress, football on the mainland is mourning. The demise of Lleida FC, the club that inherited the historic UE Lleida, will be made official in the coming days. A new club was born with the colors and values of the previous one, keeping alive the spirit of that old Lleida that played in the First Division. They have become the means to explain, step by step, the dismantling of the institution with a certain cruelty, since everyone knows that its demise seems inevitable, but even these days fans were encouraged to buy club clothing at a discount. A statement announcing that more serious talks had failed, at which point the workers were told to look for work.

In recent years, the club's owner has been Galician businessman Luis Pereira, who had briefly played for Lleida. Pereira took over in January 2022, a club riddled with debt and problems. In fact, Pereira initially seemed like a savior after the disastrous management of the Esteve brothers, who were sued by players for non-payment and accumulated debts with the Treasury and Social Security. From the Paeria, they saw how the Esteve brothers' management meant that the municipally owned sports field was not being maintained and some agreements stipulated in the agreement signed by both parties were being breached, with the stadium poorly maintained. Pereira's arrival seemed to bring order, restore enthusiasm, and aspire to promotion. This was not to be.

A resident of Switzerland, Pereira admitted this season that the club was not viable. Investments had been made in good players, paying high salaries, without achieving promotion. And the debt, instead of diminishing, grew to around five million euros, two of which were owed to the Treasury and another two to Social Security. In recent months, the players were actually no longer being paid. Deputy President Marc Torres explained on the program: The Counter of Lleida in Play, which Pereira had reportedly contributed almost three million euros for "current expenses" since arriving, but the debt continued to grow. Furthermore, Pereira had a very poor relationship with the city council and had rejected the new agreement for the use of the Sports Camp offered by the Paeria.

Once the dissolution is made official, we'll have to wait and see what happens with Lleida's place in the Second Division of the RFEF, which the teams relegated to the same group this year should be aiming for, starting with Cornellà, which could avoid relegation by paying around €300,000. The case is closely followed by Atlético Lleida, the club that plays in the Third Division of the RFEF and aims to gain a foothold by playing at the Camp d'Esports with the support of the city council. In recent seasons, in fact, the relationship between Lleida and Atlético Lleida fans has been poor, with accusations and insults exchanged. Most of Lleida's members do not want to follow Atlético, although it will soon become de facto The city's first team.

A fan-owned club

Since it appears that, unlike in 2011, no businessman is interested in re-establishing Lleida, some fans have begun to move toward creating a new club with popular shareholders. That is, a member-owned Lleida that would aim for the Catalan Fourth Division with the goal of gradually rising through the ranks. The new club, which would only officially become a club once Lleida's demise is officially announced, would be based on a system in which each member has one vote at the assemblies, following the example of clubs like AFC Wimbledon, an English club founded twenty years ago when a businessman moved the historic Wimbledon out of London, and the historic Wimbledon was moved out of London. Hundreds of members then decided to create a new Wimbledon, managed by them, which has already reached the English Third Division. There are other popular shareholder clubs in Catalonia, but Lleida's case could be special, as it would be a way to keep the spirit of the Lleida of old alive.