Match Of The Day

After weeks of confusion, which have seen mysterious Uzbeks as well as a high-energy drinks manufacturer and of course Freddy Shepherd hovering around the club's perimeters, Real Mallorca finally does now appear to be the new pride and joy of Paul Davidson, aka "The Plumber". Debt-ridden owner, Vicente Grande, has signed the sale agreement, and all that is now needed is the final whistle to be blown by the judge signing off on Grande's affairs. There should be no surprise penalty shoot-out. Unfortunate perhaps that Mallorca should choose this past weekend to go down at home to Sporting Gijon, a side previously worse than Tottenham, having lost all five games of the season.

Mr. Davidson has been pursuing the club since July when, or so it would seem, he read about the Shepherd bid, and went along with a much higher one. At the time, it appeared almost like a whim. Since then, he has spoken about Champions League and branding; nothing new, you might think, but what are the prospects?

Real Mallorca is a moderately successful team. It managed seventh in La Liga last season and has featured in both the Champions League and UEFA Cup since the turn of the century. It would be wrong to discount chances of further European adventure. La Liga, though dominated by the big two of Barcelona and Real Madrid, does not present the same obstacles to European breakthrough as the Premier League. A current example is Villarreal who are in this season's Champions League and riding high in La Liga. This is a small-town club. Villarreal, the town, barely scrapes a 50,000 population; the ground holds 22,000. Yet money pumped into the club has helped it to where it is. How long Villarreal can continue to play with the big boys though is open to question. Other wannabes have come and gone. Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo, for example, have fallen out of the top flight and into major financial problems. Debt is an issue for most Spanish teams.

Like England, there is a whole wedge of TV money sloshing around the Spanish league. Making sense of it is another matter, as there have been interminable legal wranglings as to who has what rights, but money there is, and Madrid and Barça have tended to ensure that they get the lion's share of it. Welcome though the broadcasters' benefaction is, the big two have come to be not only Spain's wealthiest clubs but also among the world's wealthiest on the basis of other ingredients - their repeated successes, regular Champions League places, huge stadiums, worldwide brand recognition and tradition. It is when you consider these ingredients that the difficulties for a club like Mallorca become obvious. None of the factors noted above applies. Its stadium is not much bigger than Villarreal's and it is an unknown in world and therefore branding terms.

Villarreal have required substantial additional investment to enable them to compete. This has attracted players like Riquelme and Pires, but neither is exactly in the same league, so to speak, as a Beckham, a Zidane or a Figo. The team's captain is Marcos Senna, the excellent but unexciting bedrock of Spain's Euro Championship-winning side. With a small stadium (like Mallorca's), match-day revenue is a fraction of that which Madrid and Barça can receive. The lessons for Real Mallorca are obvious. Mr. Davidson would need to be prepared to plumb deeply into his coffers and inject a fair old amount of moolah over and above that of his acquisition to get the club anywhere near where he might wish to see it.

One might think that a bit of new stadium building or development might help, but that would be a long-term project and the potential for a new site is almost zero, especially given the environmental resistance here to anything that smacks of rather frivolous use of land. A proposal for a new stadium has been resisted, not least by Palma town hall who, it should be noted, actually own the current stadium. Mr. Davidson could not, even if he were to wish to, move the club out of Palma; his purchase agreement forbids it. Yet even were there to be a larger stadium, it is questionable how easily it might be filled. The club has trouble doing that as it is. Coming back to the Villarreal situation, that club gets regular attendances a couple of thousand under capacity. But it is a club in a small town. Real Mallorca has a whole island to draw on, but cannot. Part of the reason, besides a lack of success, may well be because many Mallorcan football fans side with Barça. When Manchester United played the Catalan side in the last Champions League semi-finals, I went along to a bar in Alcúdia. The people there were watching "their" team. An identification here with things Catalonian is not as readily made as you might think, except when it comes to football and also the quasi-political nature of Barcelona football club. To support Barça is as much about not supporting Real Madrid, and therefore the Spanish mainstream establishment, as it is about a football team.

Creating a larger fan base may mean that the ONO stadium gets close to regular full attendances, but where might these fans come from? If not Mallorcans, then how about the expats? There is a small expat following for Real Mallorca, and an increase in this is something to which Mr. Davidson has alluded, but how realistic is it to think in terms of more becoming regular club supporters? One sticking-point is that many an expat football fan is devoted to one club already - the one back home - and even if that club may not be featuring on Sky, the chances are that this football fan will watch an English game that clashes with a Real Mallorca match. Just because the club will be English-owned does not mean that whole hordes of new, expat fans will flock to the ONO. There is undoubtedly a tourist interest in Real Mallorca, but this is temporary and also determined by the main tourist season. Apart from a handful of games at the start and the end of the football season, there is otherwise no meaningful tourism that might provide short-lived Real Mallorca fans.

One of the Holy Grails of the new breed of football club owners is that of branding and merchandising, with much of it being snapped up by fans in remote parts of the world. For Real Mallorca, the issue starts very much closer to home; in Palma, for example. There was, a while back, a piece in "The Bulletin" which suggested that there was scope for greater merchandising, asking where one could buy a replica shirt in Palma. I don't know the answer as to where one can buy such a thing, except from the club probably. And perhaps that's it. Anyone who wants a shirt has got one. Who else would? The club is, if you like, about the size of a Premier team such as Stoke. With the greatest of respect to Real Mallorca, I imagine that there are Stoke fans dispersed throughout the UK and across the globe who crave the latest shirt; I can't imagine there is the same demand for a Mallorca kit. But shirts are really the least of it. The branding of football clubs is an exercise in selling success, tradition, legacy and great players. The merchandise that flows along with this branding is dependent upon these elements. There are few clubs in the world that can pull this off with any degree of success; their names are obvious - Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal at a pinch, Real Madrid and Barça, Juventus, AC Milan and maybe Inter. Critically, what these clubs have in common is a legacy. It's why Chelsea, for instance, have ground to make up on them in terms of global awareness. And the players that such clubs can attract is vital. Beckham, and the Beckham image, were crucial to Real Madrid as a business.

Paul Davidson's branding aims seem to be rather different. In a piece in "El Mundo" a while back, he explained that he intends to create a new business, based in Mallorca, which will recycle and manufacture plastic products and also, one presumes, to act as a name for marketing his current businesses. The new business will take the name of the football club. In a way he seems about to create a sort of factory team in a reverse fashion to those such as PSV Eindhoven (Philips) or Bayer Leverkusen. He says that this business will make "mucho dinero" in selling to the whole world, and that this mucho will find its way to the team.

In this regard, Mr. Davidson is certainly an original in being willing to invest in the local economy over and above the sole acquisition of the club. But I doubt if I am alone in wondering about the strategy; it sounds curious, but being curious does not mean it is wrong, it could be brilliant. That said, it will still require, firstly, that the club is marketed well and is successful; he is effectively buying the goodwill of the name as a vehicle for other business. Secondly, were he to sell the football club, what would happen to the business? Without the football club, how could he still trade as Real Mallorca S.A.? Thirdly, if he sees Mallorca as a sound place to invest in for the plastics business, why not just do that? Why go to the trouble of buying a football club? The answer to that lies, once again, in the value of the club's name, and the added value it must generate through branding and on-the-pitch success.

I'm sure he knows the answers to these things as he's a shrewd businessman. He is to be wished well in his venture. I, for one, hope he succeeds, and even if he doesn't it will be fascinating to follow a left-field entrepreneurial approach to club ownership backed by a to-be-applauded commitment to the local economy. There has been a fair degree of negative comment in the Spanish press regarding his acquisition. In part, this reflects a parochial perspective in Mallorca. It shouldn't matter who the owner is if the club is successful. But that, I suppose, is the real problem. If it's successful. If not, that press will turn very quickly. Then there will be issues regarding the management of the club. Sr. Grande is to stay as chairman. This might seem wise as it maintains an obvious local element, but Sr. Grande is not universally popular with the Mallorca fans and if the team struggled, would heads roll? Sr. Grande's for example. Much has also been made in the press of the fact that Mr. Davidson should not be attacked as there were no Mallorcans or Spaniards who came forward to buy the club. It's a fair point, but the other way of looking at it is - why didn't they?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Lightning Seeds - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z28cGUc0Ri0. Today's title - who recorded a song with this title?

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