SmartBank League
The new owners, led by businessman Jorge Mas, owner of Inter Miami, will carry out a debt reduction that will allow the salary limit to be increased
Real Zaragoza closed this Friday the sale of the majority of the club’s share capital (more than 51%) to a group of investors led by the American businessman Jorge Mas, owner of Inter Miami together with David Beckham. The new owners of Zaragoza will carry out a debt reduction (68 million euros) that will allow increasing the salary limit of the workforce imposed by the financial control of LaLiga, “in order to improve the competitiveness of the first team”, according to highlighted the Aragonese entity, currently 13 points from relegation in the Second Division. The operation is conditioned to the permanence of the team in the silver division this season, practically assured, and to the authorization by the Higher Sports Council (CSD), a mere formality.
Zaragoza’s new shareholders have experience in international football, since apart from Jorge Mas, they control other international clubs such as the French Lens or the Colombian Millonarios. The future general director of Zaragoza, Raúl Sanllehí, in charge of heading the management of Zaragoza and restructuring the club, has developed his professional work (for more than 25 years) in Barcelona and Arsenal and, among other organizations, UEFA and the FIFA.
«All areas will be reinforced with professionals with great experience in their respective specialties, seeking the goal of growing in all areas under the premises of professionalism, effort and teamwork. The project will be marked by the desire to provide the club with a team with the ability to compete with the best and create infrastructures to improve services to fans, as well as create synergies between the different clubs owned by investors that promote sports development , financial, commercial and brand”, stressed the Aragonese club.
In addition to Jorge Mas, the other investors who have acquired the shareholding of Zaragoza put up for sale by the Alierta family are his brother José Mas, Joseph Oughourlian (founder and CEO of Amber Capital and president of Grupo Prisa), Gustavo Serpa (maximum shareholder of Millonarios), Jim Carpenter (one of the most recognized names in the world of American investment funds) and Jim Miller (co-director of direct loans in the United States).
«The new management team arrives with the aim of building a Real Zaragoza that returns to the elite of Spanish football, with full integration into Zaragoza values being another of the hallmarks of this new stage. The club is a heritage of Aragon and, therefore, the project will have the maximum respect for the memory of the entity and its Aragonese roots, where the local links that the entity already has will be maintained and strengthened, in addition to working on the internationalization of the club and with it the city”, guaranteed the entity whose presidency Christian Lapetra left last February, to be replaced by Fernando Sainz de Varanda Alierta.
Once Real Zaragoza mathematically guarantees its continuity in the Second Division, and receives the approval of the CSD, the new owners will then buy the rest of the club’s shareholders, up to 91%, belonging to Carlos Iribarren, Juan Forcén and the family Yarza.
#group #investors #buys #Real #Zaragoza #return #elite