A Real Mess At Real Mallorca

Oh, Real Mallorca, how you manage to really make yourself a real old laughing stock. This ridiculous club, subjected in the recent past to the indebtedness of the Drac Group and Vicente Grande, to the absurdly grandiose ambitions of the Walter Mitty-like Paul Davidson and to the brief and unhappy interregnum of the Marti Mingarro family and the club's entry into voluntary administration, was meant to have headed into calmer waters with a new ownership and a new team at its helm, its main face being that of vice-president, major shareholder, sporting director and indeed former coach, Llorenç Serra Ferrer.

That new team, which comprised Ferrer, Miguel Angel Nadal, Rafa's uncle and former Spanish centre-back, and Pedro Terrasa as director, didn't stay together long. Terrasa went off to the television station IB3, then he decided to go back to the club, which he did in July. It was then that the latest round of in-fighting started to get under way.

It has culminated in accusations that Terrasa has been conspiring to overthrow Ferrer and take over the club himself. This comes against a further backdrop of the club's possible sale to an unnamed Swiss group, willing it would appear to pump 30 million euros in, but which now seems to have disappeared, and of the resignation of Danish coach Michael Laudrup, whose right-hand man, Erik Larsen, had branded Ferrer a "bad man".

Laudrup had been handed something of a bum steer for the new La Liga season, star midfielder Jonathan De Guzmán being sold to Villarreal, a club with which there is bad blood over last season's Europa League qualification, and no obvious strikers being available once Pierre Webó had left. Terrasa went on record as describing Ferrer as inept in the handling of the transfer of Belgian forward Marvin Ogunjimi who will be a Mallorca player, but not until January, the transfer-window deadline having been bungled.

The club's board, ahead of a meeting to decide Terrasa's future, was split and became even more split just before the meeting when it was announced that the board's representation by the Nadal family, which owns ten per cent of the club, was to be withdrawn. Miguel Angel Nadal was close to Laudrup, who was once a team-mate at Barcelona. The Nadals have not confirmed as yet whether they will sell out.

One member of the board whose attitude towards Terrasa was unknown prior to the meeting was Utz Claassen, a German businessman, the third largest shareholder in Real Mallorca and the former president of German club Hannover 96. Claassen, who joined the board almost a year ago, came in with the sort of publicity that unfortunately reminded one of Davidson; foreign fans would soon be winging their way down to Palma to watch Real on the back of improving the club's brand name in key European tourism markets.

The extraordinary meeting of the board, in the end, resulted in Terrasa expressing his "sincere loyalty" to the club. Various apologies were offered and accepted, and so all is hunky-dory. For now.

The board does, though, also face an issue with regard to the club's old ground, the Lluis Sitjar stadium, which it, the board, reckons is going to be redevloped. Palma town hall and its mayor have been seeking guarantees regarding the 200 million euros of foreign money which is said to be going to be available for the redevelopment scheme. The town hall appears to be fast running out of patience and has insisted that the club makes sure that work is carried out on the abandoned stadium to prevent it from becoming a risk to the public.

In addition to not exactly endearing itself to the town hall, the club has managed to also make an ass of itself with talk of Luis Aragonés, the coach of Spain's World Cup-winning side, taking over from Laudrup. Unfortunately, Aragonés wanted two million a year for himself and his assistants, the sort of money that Mallorca most certainly doesn't have.

Despite all the shenanigans at the club, the team has - quite remarkably - managed to rise above them. It has performed well, even if it nearly managed to clutch relegation from the jaws of mid-table safety on the last day of last season. A return of seven points from six games, putting Mallorca tenth in La Liga at present, is reasonable, all things considered.

But the club, if not the team, stumble from one crisis to another. It would be astonishing if the team could manage to survive another season in La Liga, and it might all depend on Joaquín Caparrós, formerly at Seville, La Coruña and Bilbao, and now confirmed as the new coach. But don't put it past the team surviving. It has proved resilient, but no thanks to the club's board.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.