Valencia Are Facing Relegation This Season : Valencia are currently losing against Cadiz by 2-1 on Sunday April 30th during a Week 32 La Liga match. The club that was once the home of the likes of Juan Mata , David Silva and David Villa are not save from the relegation battle of the La Liga season as they are placed 17th with 33 points in 32 games played.
One of Spain’s biggest clubs, Valencia CF, are on the brink of falling to the second division for the first time in 37 years.
A look back at the descent into hell of the fifth most successful Spanish club in history.
6912 days after its last European title, the UEFA Cup gleaned in 2004 in the Swedish cold at the expense of Olympique de Marseille, Valencia is preparing to play for its survival within the elite of Spanish football in the coming weeks.
Despite their victory against Elche last weekend, the Valencians remain stuck at the bottom of the La Liga standings , in 17th place to be exact, two points from 18th-placed Getafe. This is an unusual place for the club, more accustomed to fighting for European qualification than fighting to avoid the drop.
Valencia CF is an institution in Spain. Since its creation on March 18th, 1919, the club has experienced only one relegation in its history, it was during the 1985-1986 season, before joining the elite again in stride.
Which gives a total of 87 seasons spent in La Liga, for an emblematic club of the 2000s in Spanish football. And yet, the decades follow each other and are not alike for the Murciélagos, who won only one King’s Cup in 2019 and who lived through a turbulent off-season last summer.
A wave of departures took away Carlos Soler, Gonçalo Guedes or even Maxi Gómez, leaving the emblematic captain José Gayà alone at the helm.
In terms of reinforcements Edinson Cavani, 36 years old on the clock arrived at the top of the bill. Nine months later, the Uruguayan is the club’s top scorer in the league with five goals.
A manager and some promising young players were acquired also such as Justin Kluivert, Ilaix Moriba or Hugo Duro.
Since the takeover of the club in 2014 by Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim , 12 coaches have worked at the club in 9 years. The managerial consistency is thus questionable.
AC Milan great Gennaro Gattuso paid the price at the end of January 2023, just seven months after putting his buttocks on the Valencia bench. The World Cup winner was replaced by a former member of the house, Rubén Baraja, who wore the Valencian tunic for ten years between 2000 and 2010.
A good point: in terms of motivation, he managed to revive his group and had managed to contribute to Valencia’s first win since the start of 2023, against Real Sociedad (1-0). The breath, however, fell slightly, and at the dawn of the 31st day, Baraja presents the balance sheet of three wins, a draw and five defeats in nine games.
In the game, there is not much to save, apart from a few brilliant shots from Kluivert, who is currently injured in the hamstrings. A season in hell, yes, but the warning signs go back a few seasons already.
Like others, the club suffered the full brunt of the Covid crisis, while the match against Atalanta Bergamo in February 2020 was suspected of having accelerated the spread of the virus in Spain and Italy.
Since the pandemic, the economic problems have become increasingly difficult to manage for Valencia, which could not count on a European qualification to inflate its income. Peter Lim’s club, accused by fans of the Valencian club of being the source of all their misfortunes, is even close to bankruptcy.
Since the billionaire came to pay off the debt (320 million euros), it has been the policy of the basket of crabs on the side of the Valencian management.
For the 2022-2023 financial year, the Spanish media El Confidencial revealed that the club’s net debt was still 276 million euros, while revenues were estimated at 140 million euros.
A colossal debt partly linked to poor management. For their part, the Che supporters criticize the inaction on the transfer market as well as the transfer of many top players of the team , like the wave of departures in the last summer transfer window.
Measures which are explained by the poor financial health of Valencia. To make matters worse, President Anil Murthy resigned in May 2022, after plays in which he criticized Peter Lim were published by the Superdeporte newspaper.
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