Valencia, plagued by uncertainty

He Valencia will close in 2023 without yet knowing when it will resume work on its new stadium and after having approved accounts seeking economic balance in a new budget cut and after a meeting of shareholders that confirmed strong response from the management of the largest shareholder Peter Lim.

The club closed with 6.9 million euros in losses last year, a negative balance but less than the previous one, where they were close to 46 million. Having computed sales as in Carlos Soler either Goncalo Guedes In this last balance it helped to improve.

In line with previous years, the budget for the 2023-24 campaign has been reduced again and remains at 99 million, ten less than the previous one. The team’s downward sports line marked a new decline in revenue from television rights, the great source of income.

The club blamed the restrictions due to League’s ‘fair play’ The lack of signings today has a wide margin in that sense but now it is justified by the self-imposed need not to incur losses.

The group of Ruben Baraja He confirmed on Saturday, December 16, at the Mestalla against Barcelona, ​​​​​​the loyalty of his fans (46,492 people in the stands), the solid support for the squad and also the majority’s rejection of Lim and his manager Before the meeting, Thousands of people showed up in front of the stadium, accusing them of being liars and demanding their departure, the same speech as in the meeting a few days before.

Rallies in front of the Valencia coliseum and demonstrations in the streets of the city to demand Lim’s departure, but also to demand that the administrations not give him coverage, became constant in 2023. The Libertad VCF organization has been a great supporter of these movements and even managed to make the relationship between Valencia and Lim part of the political debate before the May elections.

however, President Layhoon Chan He has insisted throughout the year, as he has done in previous years, that Lim, who has not traveled to Valencia since 2019, has no intention of selling his majority shareholding and is not listening to offers.

Of course, in December 2022 he gave as an example of the owner’s commitment to the greater presence of his son and advisor. Kiat Lim, but after attending that penultimate meeting, no other action is known of him except his telematic attendance at the last one.

The owner’s son was in charge of announcing that the number of shares required to attend the meeting would be reduced, something that did not materialize for one held a few days earlier (where the attendance barrier was 5,786) but was approved for that. of 2024, at which any shareholder may attend.

Layhoon Chan, as he did a year ago, reiterated the importance of the new stadium for the club and showed the the permission to continue the works has stopped for more than fifteen years-, and even the club pointed to August 2026 as the new date for the move. The leader advanced that finishing the facility could cost around 170 million euros and admitted that funding for around 45 million still needs to be found.

At the beginning of the year, the club promoted an urban planning agreement with the previous council after the Generalitat declared the Strategic Territorial Action which protects it due to entity delays but finally differences in the agreement to establish the final characteristics of the venue and the protocol of shared use that stop it.

Upon arrival at the mayor’s office María Jose Catalá (PP), the City Council’s latest move is to encourage Valencia to continue working to reach that agreement, an approach the club has not rejected. The opposition criticized the lack of transparency in the relations and also the suitability for the city of the project that Valencia could present to obtain a license.

The partners of the popular party, Vox, requested that they opt for a subsidiary execution, that is, that another company finish it and then pass the bill to Valencia, and it was directed that licenses have expiredsomething that PP denies.

The opposition questioned Lim whether the club, with high debt and no closed financing, could carry out this task. It was also warned that an agreement with the city council would facilitate the club salea possibility they believed to be true because of the type of accounts presented or the approval of free attendance at the 2024 meeting.