“I was scared, but they convinced me.” It was 1994 and businessman Dani Sánchez Llibre, then 44 years old, became Espanyol’s main sponsor. He is doing so again this season. In 1992 he had joined the club’s board after guaranteeing 500 million pesetas. “They couldn’t pay salaries, water or electricity,” recalls Sánchez Llibre. In 1997, he took over the presidency. Under his leadership, Espanyol won two Cups (2000 and 2006), was runner-up in the UEFA Cup (2007), built the Cornellà stadium and the men’s first team was never relegated. In 2016, he sold his shares to Chen Yansheng, who promised success on the pitch and in the offices: “There will be no more need to transfer players and in four years we will be in the Champions League.” Espanyol has been relegated twice in the last four years and has closed the last four years with losses.
“I don’t know if the club is worse off than the first time I supported it with sponsorship,” Sánchez Llibre explained in a conversation with Morning Express. There is one thing that the Catalan businessman was clear about: “The club was going through a bad patch with the issue of the sponsors and we reached an understanding.” Espanyol’s board found it very easy to sell, but very difficult to collect. It gave the name of the stadium to Stage Font, but broke the agreement “due to non-payment and breach of contract.” In 2022, something similar had happened to Rivera Maya, the shirt sponsor until 2024. Mao Ye, CEO, called Sánchez Llibre, three decades after his first sponsorship, to do it again. “I told him the same thing I told him 30 years ago: ‘If another company comes along and puts in one more euro, I’m leaving,” concludes Sánchez Llibre, who for his charisma, presence and successes, is considered the best president in the history of the club.
The opposite is true for Chen Yansheng. He appears little or not at all in Barcelona: in recent years he has been in the Catalan capital on three occasions: December 2019, August 2022 and May 2023. In addition, he has accumulated a terrible sporting streak, with two of the six relegations in the history of the club under his command. Before the Asian magnate, Espanyol had fallen from the top flight in 1962, 1969, 1989 and 1993; with him at the helm, in 2020 and 2023. The fans have asked for the “liberation of the club”, but for now there is no news of the sale. Yansheng has the club on the market, but he is not giving it away. According to sources from the institution, Chen would only part with his shares for more than 200 million.
And since the offer that Chen is seeking has not arrived, the club’s management is betting on austerity. There is no other way. In 2020, losses were close to 11 million; in 2021, 12.3, in 2022, 19.9; and in 2023, 30. The results for last year have not yet been announced. The systematic sale of players has not helped to offset the losses either: in the same period, the club invested 32.4 million in signings, while transfers were 60.8. This summer, it earned 1.5 million from the sale of Joselu to Qatar and only low-cost players have arrived; one free agent, Tejero (Eibar); and five on loan, Romero (Villarreal), Král (Union Berlin), Véliz (Tottenham), Cardona (Augsburg) and Kumbulla (Roma). “We are missing a 9 and a winger,” says the coach, Manolo González.
The sporting project, however, is not only based on austerity, but also on improvisation. With Chen as president, Espanyol has had 12 coaches and six sporting directors. The last two, Manolo González (coach) and Fran Garagarza (technical secretary) have a distant relationship. In fact, the coach was convinced that he was going to be fired. But Espanyol achieved promotion and Garagarza had no alternative but to leave González on the bench. Espanyol does not seem to be getting out of the labyrinth, having lost to Valladolid on the first matchday. Today they host Real Sociedad in Cornellà (21.30, Movistar), without institutional direction, but with the support of the fans (27,852 members) and with nostalgia stamped on the shirt: Dani.
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