La Liga: Mallorca denied entry into the Europa League
Real Mallorca have been denied entry into the Europa League in the upcoming 2009-2010 season, despite finishing fifth in last season’s Spanish league season. Mallorca have not been allowed to participate in the prestigious European club cup competition, because of their debt problems.
The Spanish club is under heavy amounts of debt, which according to some figures amounts to around 50-55 million Euros. Mallorca is the oldest club in the Balearic Islands history. It was formed by Adolfo Vazquez, who was a republican engineer. He named the club as Junta Directiva del Alfonso XIII FBC after Alfonso, the king of Spain.
The club was renamed to Club Deportivo Mallorca and the suffix Real was added in 1949 for political purposes. Mallorca have not had a lot of success in recent years. They won the Copa Del Rey in 2003 for the first time in their club history. Throughout their history Mallorca has spent 20 seasons in Spanish football’s top division, 29 in the second division and 11 in the third division. Mallorca’s top finish in the first division of Spanish football came in the 1999 and 2001 seasons when the club finished third in La Liga.
Their previous star players include superstars like Samuel Eto and Daniel Guiza. Eto now plays for Inter Milan but he has also plied under other Spanish clubs such as Barcelona and Inter Milan, while Guiza now plays for Fenerbache in the Turkish football league.
In the summer of 2008, Mallorca announced that 96 percent of the club’s shares had been bought by the English business man, Paul Davidson. The total amount that Davidson had to pay to acquire the shares was over 50 million pounds. However, in November of 2008, Davidson failed to complete the takeover because of a lack of finances on his part. Taking advantage of this fact, Mateo Alemany purchased Real Mallorca from the Marti-Mingarro family.
However, in May of 2010 Mallorca entered into voluntary administration as their debts had crept up to almost 55 million pounds. UEFA recently, released a statement saying that, On the basis of all expert reviews, European football’s ultimate authority has taken the decision that Mallorca do not fulfill the appropriate admission criteria for participation in the Europa league.
Mallorca’s place in the competition is now expected to go to Villarreal, who finished seventh in last season’s La Liga. Mallorca have responded by releasing a statement as well which states that, UEFA’s decision to deny Mallorca entry into the Europa league is quite surprising in both substance and form. The statement which was released on club’s official website also said that, the Spanish club will now consider certain legal steps which might be necessary to solve this problem.
The club also expressed its disappointment by saying that, they deeply regret UEFA’s decision which is the first of its kind. Last month, Llorenc Serra Ferrer became a majority share holder in the Spanish club and the Wimbledon Champion Rafael Nadal also bought shares in the club to ease some of the financial difficulties that Mallorca is facing.
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