After a week when I was informed : “If you think you are smarter than the previous generation, 50 years ago the owners of car manuals were shown how to adjust the valves – today it warns you not the drink the contents of the battery!” – Real Mallorca players and staff are off on their “holibobs” and are not due back until July 5.
The players will then have about 40 days to prepare for their return to La Primera which kicks off on the weekend of August 14/15.
This is the only data that has emerged from a pre-season that, logically, is still to be defined. The club, like any other sporting entity, has suffered monetary losses during the pandemic and we all wish and hope that grounds can once again reverberate to the noise and passion of excited fans.
Hacienda will be the greatest beneficiary of our promotion, which will allow the club to pay more quickly the 10 million euro debt that we owe the taxman.
Accumulated debts run up by overspending and bad business dealings a decade ago saw Real Mallorca fall into administration.
Our American owner Robert Sarver initially paid 21 million euros for the club back in January 2016 and since then has contributed over 50 million euros to service the outstanding debts. The owners said on purchase that they were in it for the long term and they’ve kept their word even when we were relegated in Segunda B a few seasons ago.
Mallorca will only get three million euros for their promotion heroics but will collect around 43 million euros for TV rights after returning to La Liga Santander.
It’s quite amazing the difference in money/wages etc that takes place when smaller teams reach the dizzy heights of Spain’s top league. With promotion, Real Mallorca will again start to make money as the excitement of mixing it with the best La Liga has to offer sinks in.
SPORTING director Pablo Ortells, who is now in 24 hour phone contact with coach Luis Garcia Plaza, is the busiest member of staff, working around the clock as he wheels and deals in the transfer market.
This opens at the end of this month and closes in late August. There is talk about bringing in between four and eight new faces as we can’t afford the signing mistakes that were made two summers ago.
With the “Euros” starting next Friday, many clubs won’t be doing any transfer business until they finish on July 11, although LGP has stated he wants our business done a.s.a.p.
It looks likely that our “rebel” striker from Croatia, Ante Budimir, will get his wish to stay at his loanee club Osasuna on a permanent deal.
All that remains is for them to come up with our asking price of eight million euros before the end of June, when Osasuna’s purchase option runs out. The transfer would be the most expensive in Osasuna’s history and as they haven’t got the lump sum, some kind of three-part instalment option may have to be considered.
If Osasuna don’t beat the end of June deadline, Budimir will return to play for Real Mallorca once he concludes his holiday after the Euros. The ball is well and truly in Osasuna’s court.
It’s reported that Mallorca are eyeing up a replacement striker, 25-year-old Serbian Uros Djurdjevic, who scored 22 goals for Sporting Gijon last season.
His selling price was 25 million euros but since Sporting missed out (again) on promotion and the play offs, his price has dropped dramatically. If Mallorca get the money for Budimir, then that could go a long way to obtaining “Djuka’s” services next season. The only problem is Cadiz and Getafe are also sniffing around.
A name from the past, 37-year-old Miguel Angel Moya from Binissalem has been mentioned as a possible back-up goal-keeper next season.
He’s just been released from Real Sociedad and has also played for Valencia, Getafe and Atletico Madrid.
Moya came through our academy and left Mallorca in 2009 and has enjoyed a remarkable journey in top flight Spanish football playing over 300 games in La Liga.
Last week saw Real Mallorca make its first signing and it’s another home-coming, Benito Mateo, the prestigious gardener/groundsman who rose to fame at Real Mallorca in the time of Hector Cuper in the late ’90s, returns in charge of the Son Moix pitch and the Son Bibiloni sports complex surfaces. Nicknamed the “Lawn Guru” Mateo, from Murcia, followed Hector Cuper to Inter Milan where he was in charge of the San Siro turf.
Spanish football discovered him in March 2007 during a match between the national side and Iceland in the Son Moix.
It had rained heavily in Palma for hours and the superb drainage allowed the game to go ahead without a puddle in sight.
Since then Mateo’s been at Malaga, Valencia and a spell in China.
After the last game against Zaragoza, I was surprised to hear and see that the immaculate Son Moix playing surface was to be dug up and replaced in time for the new campaign.
As the picture shows, all the turf has been removed and will be replaced with the latest hybrid surface. Benvingut Mateo! La Liga grass in the best hands!
AND FINALLY, two old geezers are in a nursing home and both realise they haven’t had sex for years.
So they sneak out and go to the local house of ill repute.
Once inside, they ask the madam for their two hottest girls.
The madam thinks to herself “I’m not going to waste my two best girls on these old coffin dodgers, I’ll just give them inflatable women, there’s no way they’ll know the difference.”
Once the old boys have their wicked way, they leave and on their way back they start talking. The first old man says “I think mine was dead because she never moved or did anything.”
The second old guy has an even better story, “I think mine was a witch because when I nibbled her neck, she farted and flew out the window!”
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