Alberto Fuentes |
Málaga (EFE).- Málaga CF has just confirmed its mathematical relegation to the First RFEF, the third category of Spanish football, ten years after reaching heaven in the quarterfinals of the Champions League. In full judicial deadlock, with its owner, the Qatari sheikh Abdullah Al Thani, separated by the courts while he is being investigated for various crimes, the team now faces a significant economic hole while the echo of potential buyers resounds, many pending from the club of the fashionable city in Europe.
Málaga’s turnover during the 2022/23 season amounted to 16,995,000 euros, but according to the club’s most pessimistic estimates, after consummating the relegation with one game to go, losses of about ten million euros are looming, confirmed this Tuesday the judicial administrator of the club, José María Muñoz.
Málaga will lose 6.5 million euros of audiovisual rights, foresees a “bad scenario” in the sale of tickets and subscriptions and, although the forecast is that there will not be a large loss in the store, it does plan “only 200,000 euros of sponsorship ”, so Muñoz assumes that the club will leave “with a turnover of around seven million euros”.
For this reason, the new reality they are facing forces an internal restructuring that is already underway and where this Thursday the first stone of the new project has already been laid: the former player and director of Real Sociedad, Loren Juarros, as a new sports director.
The judicial administrator of the club, in office since 2020 and who will continue until the judge, María de los Ángeles Ruiz, maintains it, confirmed without giving names or number of those affected the dismissal of several workers from different departments, in which it would be another employment regulation file (ERE) like the one that happened in the pandemic, where about 50 people came out counting players and employees.
On an economic level, the abandonment of First and Second professional football to land in the First federation will have a relegation aid cushion of 4.25 million euros, of which 1.25 are non-refundable and the other three would have to return them in case of promotion to the Second Division.
Despite the fact that this help is welcome to stop the coup, the truth is that Málaga estimates that they have, in the worst case, a budget of around two million euros for the preparation of the squad, although the idea of the RFEF to implement a salary limit, as occurs in LaLiga.
A new era is looming at the Andalusian club, which in terms of sports will focus its project on the youth academy, which will be the “cornerstone”, as Loren Juarros stressed in his presentation, although the sports city, called La Academia, is still under construction and little to finish the first phase.
These are the figures that show the sporting failure of a club that this 2022-23 season promised to fight for promotion and ended up doing the opposite, due to mediocre sports planning, management that could be improved and a squad that did not meet expectations.
The sale of the club, in the hands of the sheik How much is Málaga worth? It is a question that not a few will have asked themselves, because the truth is that there are many interested parties: “Of course there is interest in buying Málaga. There are people who have a closed agreement and have exchanged contracts, they have shown me those documents”, says José María Muñoz, who even so, prefers to be cautious: “I believe very little about what they tell me”.
The problem is the judicial situation, with the holder of 51 percent of the shares and therefore still the owner of the entity, Abdullah Al Thani, separated by the courts, investigated together with his sons Nasser, Nayef and Rakkan, for the alleged crimes misappropriation, money laundering and unfair administration.
Al Thani is committed to his immobility, he has made it clear on several occasions, almost all of them on the social network Twitter, where he normally expresses himself: “Málaga is not for sale”.
A few months ago, the interest of Nasser Al-Khelaifi, owner of PSG and the investment group Qatar Sports Investments, in buying Málaga came to the forefront of the world, an intention that continues despite the relegation to the First RFEF.
But as the judicial administrator says and everyone who closely follows the team knows, Málaga will be sold as long as the sheikh wants to do so or is guilty of said crimes that facilitate the future of the entity.
At the moment, on paper, the last appraisal of the club prepared in 2021 by an expert report ruled that Málaga has a value of 45,747,911 euros.
But that estimate was based on counting on Málaga being in the First Division, with the income from television rights referring to what the club would earn and not as an entity that has just been relegated to the third category of national football. Málaga is surely no longer worth close to 50 million, but as long as the judicial impasse continues, few buyers can rest easy.