Real Mallorca have been celebrating their one hundredth anniversary this year. Celebrating it in typically lousy fashion - typically lousy, as in being the normal state of the team. In order to try and inject a bit more spirit into this celebration which hasn't been, players went off for a night out at the weekend, having been turned over by another team languishing towards the bottom of Spain's second division. That team, Numancia, is such a big force that it manages to scrape some two thousand or so spectators together. By comparison, Mallorca are the big time; if one considers gates around 8,000 being the big time.
Mallorca would like to believe that they are the big time, and there have been occasions (very rare ones) over the one hundred years when they have actually achieved something. But this is not a club that falls into the sleeping giant category. It is and has been for much of its history a comatose dwarf.
It is now discovering the delights of contemporary communications technology. Local critics of England and/or Premier League footballers and their antics (think Wayne Rooney and some wedding photos) themselves find that footballers from Spain are just as capable of going out and behaving badly. Not that they did particularly; just that it didn't look good, having been on the wrong end of a 3-1 defeat against a side of even more dwarf-like qualities such as Numancia.
Supporters of Mallorca are also learning, as have those of many English clubs, that foreign ownership doesn't necessarily equate to success. There has been a German and now there's an American, and at present Mallorca are heading in one direction: out of the second division and into the obscurity of the various third divisions.
The chances are, as has been the case in previous seasons, that they will pull themselves together. They may even "go on a run", to use the hope expressed by many a fan of many a club who dares to think of a play-off spot. Equally they may not.
The foreign ownership is not what has brought Mallorca to its current low ebb. There were Mallorcans and Spaniards who had previously conspired to set in motion the downward spiral. The foreigners can't per se be blamed, though they have come offering gifts and hope. In the case of Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Suns NBA team, which he acquired for 400 million dollars in 2004, he had intimated that there could be substantial funds available. As yet, there has been little sign of this. Instead, Mallorca get by and sack coaches on a regular basis courtesy of a rag-tag combination of loaned players and the occasionally half-decent locally developed one.
Sarver paid 20 million euros for Mallorca at the start of the year. What motivated him to do so is frankly anyone's guess. While he has made a fortune from real estate and banking, his ventures into sport haven't been as successful. There was a decent run for the Phoenix Suns from 2005 to 2007, but they have since been eliminated from play-off contention for the past six seasons. In October, Sarver was ranked as the worst owner in the NBA by ESPN.
When Sarver took over there was talk of a strategic plan for the club. This didn't necessarily demand that there was immediate promotion, but one can take that with a pinch of salt. New owners do not part with 20 million and expect to linger in the second division when they have the Madrids and Barcelonas to hob-nob with in La Liga.
So where's it all going wrong? Players, coaches, owners; maybe they can all share the blame. But there seems to have been a culture of failure for several years, regardless of who has been in charge or who has been playing. Berating the current players for going on a night out is the thin end of a considerable wedge that has been driving the club down. And it's a damn shame. Having a decent La Liga side would be beneficial to Mallorca as a whole and not just the team's fans.
Showing posts with label Real Mallorca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Real Mallorca. Show all posts
Friday, December 23, 2016
Monday, September 12, 2016
Is The Pope A Mallorquinista?
There was some funny old stuff cracking off last week. Take the visit of Real Mallorca bigwigs to Rome and an apparent attempt to sign up the Pope beyond the transfer window. The Holy Father declined the temptation to decamp to the Son Moix and end Mallorca's goal drought, but instead was delighted to receive a Mallorca shirt to add to the vast range that adorns the bar at the Vatican. Or this, one assumed, was the purpose of the gift. What else would a Pope do with such a shirt? Wear it in bed? There must be such a bar, therefore, to which the visiting priesthood are invited to make use of the Vatican's Sky dish, sample the ample selection of international beers and add football shirts from many nations.
Or was there an alternative purpose to this visit by the Real Mallorca delegation? Was the shirt part of a secret mission on behalf of the island's diocese to seek papal forgiveness for the naughty bishop and to allow him to continue to bless the club's less than spectacular fortunes? Were Monti and Maheta thus despatched in the knowledge, courtesy of the diocese, that the Pope does like his football? He must do. He is Argentinian after all. Alas, the sacrificial offer of the shirt ended in failure. The naughty bishop was defenestrated. Not literally thrown out of the window, but packed off to play with the reserves in Valencia.
While Monti and Maheta were engaged in mission impossible, a performance artist no one had ever heard of was making a statement. The message went something like the Balearics are on the point of sinking into the Med under the sheer weight of accumulated tourist numbers and environmental groups berating tourists at every available opportunity. The stats office needs to start producing figures to show the ratio of environmental organisations/agitators per head of tourist population; it must be edging towards one to one by now. There's saturation for you.
Anyway, whoever this artist chappy was - Hugo was in fact his name - he determined that the performance required the symbolic use of vast beach towels, which didn't look anything like beach towels. More like sheets, of the type some lookies prefer. It was all to do with saturation by tourists, as if anyone was not already aware that there supposedly is such a saturation. We are saturated by saturation statements, so Hugo inadvertently added to the saturation. Such was the power of his message, from what one could divine, that there was no one there to witness his performance apart from the odd press photographer. So much, therefore, for beach saturation: El Molinar beach at any rate. He really should have nipped along the coast to Arenal and spread his sheets out there.
It did occur to me to wonder if he had permission from the Costas Authority to engage in such occupation of a part of the beach in the style of superyacht louts taking over Cabrera. He probably didn't need it, given that the space occupied was no greater than that taken up by a typical Mallorcan extended family which invades a beach on a Sunday. But had he, it would have been very doubtful that any environmentalists would have denounced him.
Ultimately, though, Hugo betrayed a certain lack of appreciation as to what full-on beach saturation by tourists (also known as Mallorcan residents) looks like. Beach towels there are, but they are obscured by the contents of Toys 'R' Us, some of Ikea, the entire crisps section in Eroski and most of the nearest vendor of inflatable dinosaurs. And getting all that lot on to a beach is what one could describe as a real performance.
Or was there an alternative purpose to this visit by the Real Mallorca delegation? Was the shirt part of a secret mission on behalf of the island's diocese to seek papal forgiveness for the naughty bishop and to allow him to continue to bless the club's less than spectacular fortunes? Were Monti and Maheta thus despatched in the knowledge, courtesy of the diocese, that the Pope does like his football? He must do. He is Argentinian after all. Alas, the sacrificial offer of the shirt ended in failure. The naughty bishop was defenestrated. Not literally thrown out of the window, but packed off to play with the reserves in Valencia.
While Monti and Maheta were engaged in mission impossible, a performance artist no one had ever heard of was making a statement. The message went something like the Balearics are on the point of sinking into the Med under the sheer weight of accumulated tourist numbers and environmental groups berating tourists at every available opportunity. The stats office needs to start producing figures to show the ratio of environmental organisations/agitators per head of tourist population; it must be edging towards one to one by now. There's saturation for you.
Anyway, whoever this artist chappy was - Hugo was in fact his name - he determined that the performance required the symbolic use of vast beach towels, which didn't look anything like beach towels. More like sheets, of the type some lookies prefer. It was all to do with saturation by tourists, as if anyone was not already aware that there supposedly is such a saturation. We are saturated by saturation statements, so Hugo inadvertently added to the saturation. Such was the power of his message, from what one could divine, that there was no one there to witness his performance apart from the odd press photographer. So much, therefore, for beach saturation: El Molinar beach at any rate. He really should have nipped along the coast to Arenal and spread his sheets out there.
It did occur to me to wonder if he had permission from the Costas Authority to engage in such occupation of a part of the beach in the style of superyacht louts taking over Cabrera. He probably didn't need it, given that the space occupied was no greater than that taken up by a typical Mallorcan extended family which invades a beach on a Sunday. But had he, it would have been very doubtful that any environmentalists would have denounced him.
Ultimately, though, Hugo betrayed a certain lack of appreciation as to what full-on beach saturation by tourists (also known as Mallorcan residents) looks like. Beach towels there are, but they are obscured by the contents of Toys 'R' Us, some of Ikea, the entire crisps section in Eroski and most of the nearest vendor of inflatable dinosaurs. And getting all that lot on to a beach is what one could describe as a real performance.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Kings, Queens And Gifts From Arizona
We saw three kings come sailing in on Epiphany Eve in the evening, having previously seen - were we in Palma - six royal pages come driving in on vintage American automobiles around midday. Such absence of strict tradition stretched to there being a royal pagess. How can there be a female page, some enquired. Ah, replied the sage ones, these are the days of diversity and equality, matched only by consensus and dialogue. There should have been six pagesses, therefore, plus three queens.
Or was there a queen? Hidden behind the beards, could we be sure that the kings weren't a front or a metaphor for one of the threesomes abroad in the land? Francina, Biel and Alberto, the one queen and two kings of the PM(P) Balearic government.
But if not a diverse and equal opportunities regal triad, then maybe they had been Pedro, Mariano and Albert, the ménage à trois that dares to make its tryst in Madrid, leaving Pablo the jilted lover weeping inconsolably. Alas no, because it turned out that the kings were Utz, Robert and Maheta, of whom the hirsute former might well make a passable Melchior. Possibly he might like to apply for the job next year, leading one to wonder. How do you actually become a king? Is it put out to public tender? Or is there an association of kings with an affiliate organisation for pages? There is for everything else in Mallorca, so it would come as no surprise if there were. Anyway, if anyone knows or has known a king, perhaps you can let me know how you get the gig. Not, I stress, that I'm looking to be one. Certainly not if it entails coming into port when the waves are up to three metres. It wouldn't be just showers of sweets raining down on the kiddies' heads, trust me.
Bearing a gift of some twenty-one million euros worth of frankincense, Caspar (Robert) put further joy on small faces by announcing that an NBA model will be winging its way across from Phoenix. And what does this mean? Will Real Mallorca be playing basketball instead? It would certainly be different but might not escape the attention of referees, poised ready to brandish yellow cards for deliberate hand ball. Otherwise, one assumes that Real Mallorca will, in following such a model, now pick players from a draft system and insist upon a salary cap and no promotion and relegation in Spanish soccer. Or perhaps not.
Or was there a queen? Hidden behind the beards, could we be sure that the kings weren't a front or a metaphor for one of the threesomes abroad in the land? Francina, Biel and Alberto, the one queen and two kings of the PM(P) Balearic government.
But if not a diverse and equal opportunities regal triad, then maybe they had been Pedro, Mariano and Albert, the ménage à trois that dares to make its tryst in Madrid, leaving Pablo the jilted lover weeping inconsolably. Alas no, because it turned out that the kings were Utz, Robert and Maheta, of whom the hirsute former might well make a passable Melchior. Possibly he might like to apply for the job next year, leading one to wonder. How do you actually become a king? Is it put out to public tender? Or is there an association of kings with an affiliate organisation for pages? There is for everything else in Mallorca, so it would come as no surprise if there were. Anyway, if anyone knows or has known a king, perhaps you can let me know how you get the gig. Not, I stress, that I'm looking to be one. Certainly not if it entails coming into port when the waves are up to three metres. It wouldn't be just showers of sweets raining down on the kiddies' heads, trust me.
Bearing a gift of some twenty-one million euros worth of frankincense, Caspar (Robert) put further joy on small faces by announcing that an NBA model will be winging its way across from Phoenix. And what does this mean? Will Real Mallorca be playing basketball instead? It would certainly be different but might not escape the attention of referees, poised ready to brandish yellow cards for deliberate hand ball. Otherwise, one assumes that Real Mallorca will, in following such a model, now pick players from a draft system and insist upon a salary cap and no promotion and relegation in Spanish soccer. Or perhaps not.
Friday, January 08, 2016
Brand Mallorca: Now it's football
Time was when football meant going to a decrepit stadium, being crushed on terraces, devouring a hamburger with onions that lacked anything approaching ham or burger but did have a considerable amount of watery onion, and being on the receiving end of violent tendencies that would result in the urgent need for dental treatment.
With the possible and unlucky exception of the latter, none of this now applies. Be you fan, supporter or however you choose to perceive yourself, football has long since acquired a degree of sophistication and luxury that occupies a very different universe to the past.
Contemporary or of the past, there is one thing that draws these eras together: the very notion of being a fan and of fan loyalty. All manner of privations were once tolerated in displaying and stating this loyalty. They have largely disappeared, but the notion of fandom has remained constant. Its ferocity may be less that of physical violence, but in the style of a meek and mild footballer who turns into a raging bull when he crosses the white line, so passing through the turnstiles converts meek and mild members of the public into beasts of torment, as also does Robbie Savage on 606 when he dares to suggest your club will get relegated. Passion, irrationality, love and hate: it's still all there, just that it's now shouted by a stockbroker called Justin with a posh voice.
Which is probably how many football clubs would like it to be on account of Justin having sufficient left over from the monthly finance repayment on the Porsche to be able to afford to actually go to a match. Moreover, Justin would have just the right profile for the market segmentation efforts of the club's commercial department, and he would share this, save for nationality, with his counterparts in China, the USA or pretty much any other part of the globe.
There is, however, some familiarity with how things once were, and it is to be found in lower divisions of leagues across Europe. The top clubs in the top divisions are primarily those who have acquired the Justins and the global images. For the vast majority of clubs, the notion of the brand is as distant today as it was in the good old days before the Justins and when a brand was something they put on a horse in Westerns.
Ah yes, brand. There I was, only a few days ago, considering branding and its meaning in a Mallorcan context. There is now a further and somewhat unexpected reason to consider it. Real Mallorca is to be made into a brand. A worldwide brand.
Without wishing to rain on anyone's parade and also wishing every success for an endeavour that might bring great joy to Mallorca as a whole and not just for the football club, please excuse me if I am somewhat sceptical.
A football club's fans are loyal. It is this loyalty which forms the foundations of any club. To some extent, though, this loyalty - for the highly business-oriented clubs - has been eroded in the pursuit of a different type of loyalty. It is to the brand and is the product of successful marketing, allied to television sales, and it is very often in foreign lands, where there is not the same connection that exists in a home community or home country: not the same passionate instincts that have led and still lead fans to be not always totally rational and so utterly devoted.
There is a superficiality to branding. It was one I referred to it in that previous article. It is the marketing experience, the merchandising and so on. But behind truly successful brands there is a great deal more. In the case of a football club, it is, or should be, what it represents, what its values are and what it means to people.
The most successful football brand, as revealed by the Brand Finance Football report of 2014, is not Real Madrid or Manchester United, it is Bayern Munich. And the reasons why are not just because the team is successful. It has a tradition, one connected to Bavaria, and it embraces this, down to the occasional donning of Lederhosen and going to the beer festival. It has made a virtue of being different in various ways. It is also close to its loyal fans in treating them well through, for instance, low ticket prices. It is a club which stands for things. It has attributes which transcend mere success in competitions.
Fundamentally, only genuine success can make a global football brand, but the roots of this are much closer to home. For ambitions for Real Mallorca, the questions have to be asked. What does the club represent? What does it mean? I wonder if anyone other than a Mallorcan can provide such answers.
With the possible and unlucky exception of the latter, none of this now applies. Be you fan, supporter or however you choose to perceive yourself, football has long since acquired a degree of sophistication and luxury that occupies a very different universe to the past.
Contemporary or of the past, there is one thing that draws these eras together: the very notion of being a fan and of fan loyalty. All manner of privations were once tolerated in displaying and stating this loyalty. They have largely disappeared, but the notion of fandom has remained constant. Its ferocity may be less that of physical violence, but in the style of a meek and mild footballer who turns into a raging bull when he crosses the white line, so passing through the turnstiles converts meek and mild members of the public into beasts of torment, as also does Robbie Savage on 606 when he dares to suggest your club will get relegated. Passion, irrationality, love and hate: it's still all there, just that it's now shouted by a stockbroker called Justin with a posh voice.
Which is probably how many football clubs would like it to be on account of Justin having sufficient left over from the monthly finance repayment on the Porsche to be able to afford to actually go to a match. Moreover, Justin would have just the right profile for the market segmentation efforts of the club's commercial department, and he would share this, save for nationality, with his counterparts in China, the USA or pretty much any other part of the globe.
There is, however, some familiarity with how things once were, and it is to be found in lower divisions of leagues across Europe. The top clubs in the top divisions are primarily those who have acquired the Justins and the global images. For the vast majority of clubs, the notion of the brand is as distant today as it was in the good old days before the Justins and when a brand was something they put on a horse in Westerns.
Ah yes, brand. There I was, only a few days ago, considering branding and its meaning in a Mallorcan context. There is now a further and somewhat unexpected reason to consider it. Real Mallorca is to be made into a brand. A worldwide brand.
Without wishing to rain on anyone's parade and also wishing every success for an endeavour that might bring great joy to Mallorca as a whole and not just for the football club, please excuse me if I am somewhat sceptical.
A football club's fans are loyal. It is this loyalty which forms the foundations of any club. To some extent, though, this loyalty - for the highly business-oriented clubs - has been eroded in the pursuit of a different type of loyalty. It is to the brand and is the product of successful marketing, allied to television sales, and it is very often in foreign lands, where there is not the same connection that exists in a home community or home country: not the same passionate instincts that have led and still lead fans to be not always totally rational and so utterly devoted.
There is a superficiality to branding. It was one I referred to it in that previous article. It is the marketing experience, the merchandising and so on. But behind truly successful brands there is a great deal more. In the case of a football club, it is, or should be, what it represents, what its values are and what it means to people.
The most successful football brand, as revealed by the Brand Finance Football report of 2014, is not Real Madrid or Manchester United, it is Bayern Munich. And the reasons why are not just because the team is successful. It has a tradition, one connected to Bavaria, and it embraces this, down to the occasional donning of Lederhosen and going to the beer festival. It has made a virtue of being different in various ways. It is also close to its loyal fans in treating them well through, for instance, low ticket prices. It is a club which stands for things. It has attributes which transcend mere success in competitions.
Fundamentally, only genuine success can make a global football brand, but the roots of this are much closer to home. For ambitions for Real Mallorca, the questions have to be asked. What does the club represent? What does it mean? I wonder if anyone other than a Mallorcan can provide such answers.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
The Tourism Benefits Of Football
The chairmen of Leicester City and Burnley football clubs will be very happy Thai and Lancastrian gentlemen. Thanks to the new television deal, they can look forward to their clubs receiving untold fortunes in the Premier League next season. Of relegated sides from the Premier, the comedy gold that is the Cardiff City boardroom risks turning to dross despite the parachute payments.
We are familiar enough with the financial imperatives of Premier League football to the teams which inhabit it. In Spain, though the finances are different (the rich - Real Madrid and Barcelona - get absurdly rich, while the others make do), there are similar imperatives. At Real Mallorca they are only too well aware of them, but while the club's woes have been well chronicled, the fall into the Segunda was and is only part of them. The fall could be very much further.
While the football focus is on club finances, what of the wider economy in towns and cities with football clubs? What are the economic profits and losses from tourism of a team being in the premier division or in the second?
I am unaware of there having been a study of the economic impact of Real Mallorca's relegation. If there is to be one, it will probably have to come from the Balearics Chamber of Commerce, which would be following the lead of Chambers of Commerce in other parts of Spain that have sought to put numbers on the impact of promotion if not relegation. And one of the more thorough studies has been that involving Real Zaragoza.
Promoted at the end of the 2008-2009 season, Zaragoza went down again, along with Mallorca, last season. In anticipating the 2009-2010 season, the local Chamber of Commerce examined the benefits of promotion by assessing those that had been derived from the season before relegation (2007-2008). It was a highly detailed examination, and one that threw up some revealing statistics. There was a calculation of the total number of fans (of other teams), of away team members and personnel, of media people and of referees and linesmen. The number of fans was 14,707, an average of 774 per match. Away support for Spanish football teams is considerably lower than in England, and by way of comparison, the average number of away fans for matches in the Championship (equivalent to the Segunda) in 2012-2013 was 1,323, almost double, therefore, the away support for a Zaragoza La Liga match.
The distance that has to be travelled is the principal reason for lower away support, but unlike in England, where an away fan would typically not stay overnight, in Zaragoza a half of the away fans did. It is the overnight stays of fans, teams, press and referees, their spend on hotels, restaurants and other services that are at the heart of the calculation of economic benefit. In total, it was reckoned to have amounted to over 20.5 million euros in the 2007-2008 season.
Another study, that for Murcia, which was promoted in 2007, shows that the general economic benefit was over ten million euros. One for Granada has revealed that the local economy benefits by 28 million euros from promotion.
A professor at the University of Oviedo, Plácido Rodríguez, has done a fair amount of research into the effects of clubs' relegation and promotion on their local economies, but he admits that it is difficult to calculate the effects of relegation. I'm not sure why. If studies can place numbers on the positive impact of promotion, surely the same methodologies can apply in the case of relegation. The professor says that there haven't been "exhaustive studies" into the effects of relegation, and this has led to rather misleading reports. The losses from relegation, e.g. in Zaragoza and Murcia, are reported as being the same as the gains from promotion, when they clearly can't be. Apart from anyone else, there are still the referees and the teams.
Quite obviously though, there is a loss because of relegation, and one indirect way is through the promotion of the town or city. The study into Zaragoza's promotion highlighted the fact that mere presence in the top division exposes the city to greater recognition nationally and internationally and that this leads to more general tourism. The study put a value of 5.5 million euros on this aspect alone.
Whether Real Mallorca's descent into the Segunda has a negative impact in this regard is impossible to say. Nonetheless, there is much to be said for premier league presence acting as a means of indirect tourism promotion. For example, of all those new Chinese tourists who are coming to Spain, a goodly number know all about Madrid and Barcelona because of football. It may only be football, but perhaps rather more attention should be being paid to Mallorca's parlous situation. Back in the top flight, and there is a nice little means of tourism promotion.
We are familiar enough with the financial imperatives of Premier League football to the teams which inhabit it. In Spain, though the finances are different (the rich - Real Madrid and Barcelona - get absurdly rich, while the others make do), there are similar imperatives. At Real Mallorca they are only too well aware of them, but while the club's woes have been well chronicled, the fall into the Segunda was and is only part of them. The fall could be very much further.
While the football focus is on club finances, what of the wider economy in towns and cities with football clubs? What are the economic profits and losses from tourism of a team being in the premier division or in the second?
I am unaware of there having been a study of the economic impact of Real Mallorca's relegation. If there is to be one, it will probably have to come from the Balearics Chamber of Commerce, which would be following the lead of Chambers of Commerce in other parts of Spain that have sought to put numbers on the impact of promotion if not relegation. And one of the more thorough studies has been that involving Real Zaragoza.
Promoted at the end of the 2008-2009 season, Zaragoza went down again, along with Mallorca, last season. In anticipating the 2009-2010 season, the local Chamber of Commerce examined the benefits of promotion by assessing those that had been derived from the season before relegation (2007-2008). It was a highly detailed examination, and one that threw up some revealing statistics. There was a calculation of the total number of fans (of other teams), of away team members and personnel, of media people and of referees and linesmen. The number of fans was 14,707, an average of 774 per match. Away support for Spanish football teams is considerably lower than in England, and by way of comparison, the average number of away fans for matches in the Championship (equivalent to the Segunda) in 2012-2013 was 1,323, almost double, therefore, the away support for a Zaragoza La Liga match.
The distance that has to be travelled is the principal reason for lower away support, but unlike in England, where an away fan would typically not stay overnight, in Zaragoza a half of the away fans did. It is the overnight stays of fans, teams, press and referees, their spend on hotels, restaurants and other services that are at the heart of the calculation of economic benefit. In total, it was reckoned to have amounted to over 20.5 million euros in the 2007-2008 season.
Another study, that for Murcia, which was promoted in 2007, shows that the general economic benefit was over ten million euros. One for Granada has revealed that the local economy benefits by 28 million euros from promotion.
A professor at the University of Oviedo, Plácido Rodríguez, has done a fair amount of research into the effects of clubs' relegation and promotion on their local economies, but he admits that it is difficult to calculate the effects of relegation. I'm not sure why. If studies can place numbers on the positive impact of promotion, surely the same methodologies can apply in the case of relegation. The professor says that there haven't been "exhaustive studies" into the effects of relegation, and this has led to rather misleading reports. The losses from relegation, e.g. in Zaragoza and Murcia, are reported as being the same as the gains from promotion, when they clearly can't be. Apart from anyone else, there are still the referees and the teams.
Quite obviously though, there is a loss because of relegation, and one indirect way is through the promotion of the town or city. The study into Zaragoza's promotion highlighted the fact that mere presence in the top division exposes the city to greater recognition nationally and internationally and that this leads to more general tourism. The study put a value of 5.5 million euros on this aspect alone.
Whether Real Mallorca's descent into the Segunda has a negative impact in this regard is impossible to say. Nonetheless, there is much to be said for premier league presence acting as a means of indirect tourism promotion. For example, of all those new Chinese tourists who are coming to Spain, a goodly number know all about Madrid and Barcelona because of football. It may only be football, but perhaps rather more attention should be being paid to Mallorca's parlous situation. Back in the top flight, and there is a nice little means of tourism promotion.
Monday, June 10, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Oltra is the new coach of Real Mallorca
Despite a lack of official confirmation, José Luis Oltra is apparently the new coach of Real Mallorca. Oltra has experience of taking teams up from the Second Division to La Liga (as with Deportivo), so Mallorca will be hoping he can repeat this success.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Manzano's appointment greeted with fan hostility
Gregorio Manzano, newly installed as Real Mallorca's coach (for the third time), faces a tough time in winning over the fans who haven't forgiven him for suing the club following his last departure and so, in the fans' eyes, helping to precipitate financial problems at the club. Police had to be brought in to calm protests who called for Manzano to go now.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Manzano returns to Real Mallorca
Following the sacking of Joaquín Caparrós, Real Mallorca have turned once more to Gregorio Manzano. His appointment means that he will have his third spell as Mallorca's coach. He was in charge during the 2002-2003 season when he took the team to victory in the Copa del Rey and then again from 2006 to 2010. His greatest achievement during this second spell was to get Mallorca up to fifth in La Liga and so to qualify for the Europa League, a qualification which was then denied to the club because of concerns that UEFA had regarding the club's finances. He left in 2010 amidst controversy and a falling-out with the board (and then owner of the club) over non-payment of his salary. His most recent coaching appointment was with Atlético Madrid (for the second time), where he lasted only six months, dismissed because the team was languishing in mid-table halfway through the 2011-2012 season. Manzano's return will probably be welcomed by most Mallorca supporters. He has brought some relative success in the past. For now, the most important task is to keep Mallorca in the top flight.
Monday, February 04, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Caparrós sacked as Real Mallorca coach
Not unexpectedly, Joaquín Caparrós, having presided over the dramatic slump in Real Mallorca's fortunes this season, has been sacked as the club's coach. Caparrós, who took over from Michael Laudrup in 2011, enjoyed a decent first season with the club and a fine start to the current season. Mallorca were at one point second in La Liga, but a run which has seen the team take only six points from a possible 54 has left Mallorca in nineteenth position and so in the relegation zone. The defeat yesterday against Real Sociedad was the final straw for the board. To what extent Caparrós has been hampered by the in-fighting on the board is questionable, but all is not right at Mallorca, as it hasn't been for several years. Who will now take over? One name that has been mentioned, by Monro Bryce in the "Majorca Daily Bulletin" is Lothar Matthäus. But his would be an appointment inspired by German shareholder Utz Claassen who is at loggerheads with the main shareholder Llorenç Serra Ferrer, so it is doubtful if Matthäus would get the job, which is probably as well for Mallorca as he doesn't have a great record as a coach.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Claassen calls for Caparrós to be sacked
The fighting at board level at Real Mallorca football club continues, Utz Claassen, the German shareholder, now calling for coach Joaquín Caparrós to be dismissed along with the sporting director, the major shareholder, Llorenç Serra Ferrer. Claassen considers that Caparrós has caused conflict within the squad and has criticised statements he has made and the support he has received from Serra Ferrer.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca's organisation to be decided today
Following the announcement by Jaume Cladera that he is stepping down as president of Real Mallorca, a meeting this afternoon should decide the future direction of the club, German Utz Claassen holding all the aces in choosing which way to go. There is speculation, despite Claassen's well-publicised disagreements with major shareholder Llorenç Serra Ferrer, that the German could support him.
Update: The meeting failed to arrive at an agreement, but a new member of the board to replace Cladera should be decided on Monday next week, and the election of a new president should take place on 29 January.
See more: Ultima Hora
Update: The meeting failed to arrive at an agreement, but a new member of the board to replace Cladera should be decided on Monday next week, and the election of a new president should take place on 29 January.
See more: Ultima Hora
Monday, December 24, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Cladera resigns as Real Mallorca president
Jaume Cladera, who, along with major shareholder and director of football Llorenç Serra Ferrer, has been under pressure over the handling of the club, has resigned as president of Real Mallorca and left the board, citing personal reasons. The question arises as to who will succeed him, a decision which may bring to an end the blood-letting at board level or make it worse.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - EU looks into town hall aid to Real Mallorca
Following complaints from other member states, the competition directorate of the European Union is looking into grants and other financial aid to football clubs from town halls in Spain. Arrangements involving a total of 38 town halls are being investigated, one being Palma and grants made to Real Mallorca.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Thursday, September 13, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca is haemorrhaging fans
Sid Lowe of "The Guardian" once famously (or infamously) said that Real Mallorca had no fans (a joke that the po-faced fans that there are didn't get). It does of course have fans but the number of members has dropped alarmingly, there having been a loss of more than 8,000 members since the 2005-2006 season when there were 18,000 or so.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Thursday, September 06, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca could yet be forced out of business
Real Mallorca football club faces the prospect that it could be wound up if an appeal by a major creditor, Delta Sport, is upheld by the provincial court in the Balearics that would nullify a creditors' agreement drawn up at the end of last year. Despite Delta Sport having expressed an intention to withdraw its appeal against this agreement, it hasn't been and is due to be ruled on next month. If the ruling goes in favour of Delta, Real Mallorca's assets would be liquidated and the club would go out of business.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Saturday, August 18, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca get improved television deal
Real Mallorca have signed an agreement with Prisa for television rights over the next three years which will lead to an increase in revenue from rights over 20 million euros. The club have broken the contract with Mediapro, as have other clubs which had been threatening to delay the start of the new La Liga season in a row over rights income.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Twenty-Twenty Vision: Real Mallorca
Utz Claassen has an unfortunate haircut. It is one sheared from a recent German tradition of hairstyling that bears no relation to convention or contemporaneousness. It veers towards the mulletist tendency of head furniture, combining an element of balding; it is Phil Collins of the 1980s with a light perm.
One shouldn't judge someone on haircut alone, but it is hard to ignore doing so in Utz's case. Indeed, it is hard to ignore Utz full stop. He's been popping up with great regularity recently, his ongoing clashes with other owners of Real Mallorca football club and his desire to put his side of the story having guaranteed his column inches.
Were it solely down to him, Utz would probably be the proud sole or majority owner of Real Mallorca, though what it might cost him to prise shares away from others, who can tell. Given that he has sought to find legal redress, and failed, in his claim that he paid over the odds for his current shareholding, you would imagine he might be reluctant to part with more than a few euros.
Undeterred by the fact that he isn't the club's major shareholder and by all his wrangling with his fellow shareholders (or perhaps because of it), Utz has been putting forward his vision for the club. This is a vision, one suspects, very much for PR purposes. German and therefore foreign, were he to ever become the largest shareholder, he would need to have a sceptical and parochial local fan base onside, its scepticism raised by all the recent history involving foreign suitors.
One of these was of course The Plumber. The Paul Davidson fiasco made a laughing stock out of many, and not just those associated with the club which, in any case, has been adept in achieving laughing-stock status on its own and without the intervention of some Mitty-like character.
Davidson had a vision as well. Part of this involved constructing a plastics recycling plant and slapping the Real Mallorca brand name (sic) onto all manner of business ideas. And of course, Real Mallorca was going to become a big cheese of a football team. League titles, European titles, and so on.
Utz has now gone public in presenting his vision going forward to the year 2020. This twenty-twenty vision includes Real Mallorca becoming the third force in Spanish football (behind, one supposes, Real Madrid and Barça) and generating extra income through the building of day care centres, chapels and cemeteries. You what!? Apparently, there are such things in the grounds of some German clubs' stadia, so we will have to take Utz's word that having a cemetery behind one end of Mallorca's stadium might be a sound idea.
This does beg a question (in fact, it begs several), and that is - which stadium? Moreover, plans for building this and that have a tendency to get bound up in local politics and red tape; Davidson's idea for a recycling plant was crackers, as he would never have got permission for it.
On the footballing side, it is not uncommon for wannabe club owners to have visions of league and European glory, but for Mallorca to be taking part habitually in the Champions League, which is what Utz envisions, something pretty dramatic would have to occur. Like finding a load of money. You can't knock a chap for having a vision, like you can't knock him for having a daft haircut, but the scepticism level will surely have been raised several more notches as a consequence of Utz dreaming of Europe.
The best that Mallorca could hope for would be to be like Stoke City, a well-run club and team that knocks on the doors of the Europa League and has gained admission. But this, apart from the well-run bit, is what Mallorca have been and are. The club and team are two separate things. The club has been in turmoil, while the team, if it hasn't necessarily thrived, has still managed to achieve, and very nearly qualifying for a Europa League spot this season was an achievement.
Utz is playing the PR game in seeking support from the fan base and the wider Mallorcan public in his battles with other club owners. Whether he convinces is questionable. Building cemeteries comes on the back of previous ideas, such as bringing great plane loads of Germans to watch Mallorca, one that was greeted with derision in some quarters of the press. And now there is also his vision of the team being bolstered by star players from Spain, England and Germany, all part of trying to drum up foreign supporters. But which star players? Utz isn't like the Venkys, who had in mind Ronaldinho and Beckham, but is his vision just a PR strategy pure and simple?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
One shouldn't judge someone on haircut alone, but it is hard to ignore doing so in Utz's case. Indeed, it is hard to ignore Utz full stop. He's been popping up with great regularity recently, his ongoing clashes with other owners of Real Mallorca football club and his desire to put his side of the story having guaranteed his column inches.
Were it solely down to him, Utz would probably be the proud sole or majority owner of Real Mallorca, though what it might cost him to prise shares away from others, who can tell. Given that he has sought to find legal redress, and failed, in his claim that he paid over the odds for his current shareholding, you would imagine he might be reluctant to part with more than a few euros.
Undeterred by the fact that he isn't the club's major shareholder and by all his wrangling with his fellow shareholders (or perhaps because of it), Utz has been putting forward his vision for the club. This is a vision, one suspects, very much for PR purposes. German and therefore foreign, were he to ever become the largest shareholder, he would need to have a sceptical and parochial local fan base onside, its scepticism raised by all the recent history involving foreign suitors.
One of these was of course The Plumber. The Paul Davidson fiasco made a laughing stock out of many, and not just those associated with the club which, in any case, has been adept in achieving laughing-stock status on its own and without the intervention of some Mitty-like character.
Davidson had a vision as well. Part of this involved constructing a plastics recycling plant and slapping the Real Mallorca brand name (sic) onto all manner of business ideas. And of course, Real Mallorca was going to become a big cheese of a football team. League titles, European titles, and so on.
Utz has now gone public in presenting his vision going forward to the year 2020. This twenty-twenty vision includes Real Mallorca becoming the third force in Spanish football (behind, one supposes, Real Madrid and Barça) and generating extra income through the building of day care centres, chapels and cemeteries. You what!? Apparently, there are such things in the grounds of some German clubs' stadia, so we will have to take Utz's word that having a cemetery behind one end of Mallorca's stadium might be a sound idea.
This does beg a question (in fact, it begs several), and that is - which stadium? Moreover, plans for building this and that have a tendency to get bound up in local politics and red tape; Davidson's idea for a recycling plant was crackers, as he would never have got permission for it.
On the footballing side, it is not uncommon for wannabe club owners to have visions of league and European glory, but for Mallorca to be taking part habitually in the Champions League, which is what Utz envisions, something pretty dramatic would have to occur. Like finding a load of money. You can't knock a chap for having a vision, like you can't knock him for having a daft haircut, but the scepticism level will surely have been raised several more notches as a consequence of Utz dreaming of Europe.
The best that Mallorca could hope for would be to be like Stoke City, a well-run club and team that knocks on the doors of the Europa League and has gained admission. But this, apart from the well-run bit, is what Mallorca have been and are. The club and team are two separate things. The club has been in turmoil, while the team, if it hasn't necessarily thrived, has still managed to achieve, and very nearly qualifying for a Europa League spot this season was an achievement.
Utz is playing the PR game in seeking support from the fan base and the wider Mallorcan public in his battles with other club owners. Whether he convinces is questionable. Building cemeteries comes on the back of previous ideas, such as bringing great plane loads of Germans to watch Mallorca, one that was greeted with derision in some quarters of the press. And now there is also his vision of the team being bolstered by star players from Spain, England and Germany, all part of trying to drum up foreign supporters. But which star players? Utz isn't like the Venkys, who had in mind Ronaldinho and Beckham, but is his vision just a PR strategy pure and simple?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Claassen charge against Real Mallorca rejected
A criminal charge sought against Real Mallorca's president and main shareholder by German shareholder Utz Claassen has been rejected by a judge in Palma. Classen, who owns 20% of the club's shares, claimed that he had been swindled into paying over the odds for the shares. The judge considered the claim to lack basis and to have been in "bad faith".
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Doug Ellis gets dragged into Real Mallorca argument
Utz Claassen, the German shareholder in Real Mallorca, who is seeking redress for what he claims was an overpayment for shares, the result of his having been misled by club representatives, is alleging that former Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis was almost a victim of a similar attempt by club officials to pay more than was necessary for buying into the club. Club officials have denied any attempts at deception in the sale of shares.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Monday, March 05, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Claassen lays charges of alleged Real Mallorca swindle
Utz Claassen, the German shareholder in Real Mallorca football club has issued a "denuncia" against major shareholder Llorenç Serra Ferrer and club president Jaume Cladera that amounts to an accusation of a crime of having duped him into paying over the odds for shares. He is demanding an indemnity of 600,000 euros and there is a possibility that he will level other charges.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
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