Rayo Vallecano Promoted

With three points this weekend, Rayo Vallecano, that working-class club from the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas have been promoted to the first division for the first time since the 2002-2003 season. It has been a long road for supporters and players of this very proud club. The club was in financial ruin after the failure of many of the companies in the Nueva Romasa Group and its principle owners the Ruis-Mateos family. Players weren´t being paid and creditors were looming, when a savior appeared: Raúl Santiago Martín Presa. He paid his players and the money started flowing to creditors. Everything seemed out of a fairy-tale.

Martin-Presa made his money in printing, holds important patents, is on the board of at least eight companies and at 36 years old would be one of the youngest people ever to direct a first division club in Spain. He bought 98.6% of the club´s, assuming about 40 million euros of debt, but according to certain reports, this is no white knight appearing out of nowhere to save the club from oblivion.

According to Juan Luis Galiacho, in the afore-mentioned link, the new owner has a cloudy financial history. He has not submitted balance sheets nor income statements in the commercial registry for more than three years, and even then, in the last fiscal year recorded (2008), Martin-Presa´s companies were over a million euros in debt.

Granted, many companies in Spain are failing, where unemployment is in some segments up to and above 40% of the population, but it does seem odd that the Ruis-Mateos family would cede all but 2 or so percent of the family holdings in the club to an inexperienced business-man with a spotty catalog. Are his qualifications merely that he has been a socio of the franjiroja for ten years?

I make no judgments yet, other than the fact that La Liga needs qualified investors for the benefit not only of its smallest clubs but for the health of the league in general. It´s a great day to welcome the fourth Madrid club to play in next year´s La Liga schedule, but I´d be wary if I were a Rayo Vallecano supporter.

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