Valencia has re-entered the League on the wrong foot. Again. In three games, one point, one goal and no more than half a dozen clear chances. The fans, who once again fill Mestalla every day at home, and even more so now that they have entered the farewell season of the oldest Primera stadium, feel somewhere between frustrated and cheated. This Valencia does not recognize its past. It looks like a disfigured image in the mirror. But Ron Gourlay, the Scot whom Singapore businessman Peter Lim made his football CEO 13 months ago, is trying to fly a small flag of optimism.
This veteran of the business, 35 years of experience behind him, with periods of glory at Chelsea and Manchester United, clings to the team's second round last season, in which he was the third with the most points (32), and in the Nuevo Mestalla, the new coliseum, with a capacity close to 70,000 spectators, which should be ready for the next season and in which he trusts to revitalize the economy of an entity that this summer has only invested 9.4 million euros, less than 13 other LaLiga clubs, half that of Getafe, and almost a third of what Deportivo, a recently promoted club, has spent.
Gourlay, a 64-year-old man on the verge of retirement - he arrived in Valencia 13 months ago and says he intends to be there for three full years before retiring - spent, translation by translation, almost two hours explaining his vision of the transfer market. The Briton boasted of having made three good additions - Justin de Haas, Aliou Dieng and Ryunosuke Sato - and of having roped in “two top players”, as he described the 19-year-old Japanese striker and Guido, the 32-year-old Argentine midfielder who arrived on loan last season.
The sports manager of this century-old club used financial fair play as an excuse to justify the meager expenditure on signing apparently irrelevant players who have failed to awaken the enthusiasm of a fan base that even threatens to leave Mestalla empty, as a sign of protest, on Sunday during the visit of a Barcelona team that this summer has spent 18 times more money than Valencia.
The fair play of this club with six Leagues, eight Copas del Rey, three UEFA Cups (the first two under the name of the Fairs Cup), one Cup Winners' Cup, two European Super Cups and two Champions League finals, round, after selling only one player and giving up another, the 80 million euros. That is the money that can be spent on the template. Next season, with the income that the new stadium will bring, on the other side of the city, still under construction, it could exceed 130. Valencia right now has a debt close to 380 million euros and Peter Lim, the owner of the club for 12 years, is not willing to put more money to increase the financial capacity of a team that is very much in decline.
When I was a child I also liked to get excited every summer about signings and that's why I understand the fans' frustration."
Ron Gourlay, CEO of Valencia CF football
Gourlay repeated his arguments ad nauseam and insisted that, from his point of view, the club has not stopped moving forward and improving. “The decisions that have been made are the correct ones. In the last 13 months there have been 23 transactions and two signings of top players, such as Guido or Sato," he said. "The players need time to adapt, we already saw it last year. Nine left and eight arrived, and their performance was very good and we got 32 points in the second round.” The manager specified what the backbone of his project is: “the New Mestalla and the development of talent through the youth system.” Pure war economy.
Carlos Corberán seems untouchable at the head of the group. “He is the right person to lead this project. We are in a great club, but we need stability and that will allow us to advance like in the second half of last season, in which we were one point away from Europe." Gourlay, who made it clear that he has never thought about resigning and that, like all fans, he feels disappointed by this start to the League, avoided talking this time - he did in his previous appearance - of returning the team to Europe, where he has not appeared for eight seasons. An objective that seems complicated without great references in the squad.
