Villarreal/La Liga News: May 27

Hola groguets!  Tying up some loose ends here.  A lot of Engliish-language La Liga news today.Jua

As you probably know, Villarreal are in Hong Kong for a tournament involving Hong Kong Rangers and our arch-rivals Valencia CF.  The former "Unibats" have been in the news much of late: Singapore businessman Peter Lim may not have been deemed fit to own an EPL side, but in Spain, the bar is set pretty low, so...

Lim has purchased 70% of Valencia's shares, as explained here by the Guardian (UK):
Lim completes Valencia takeover/The Guardian

He still has to agree with Bankia on a plan to repay the club's debt; the bank apparently favored a proposal by investment bankers Cerberus, but were denied. Apparently the Popular Party (in control of the regional government--Fabra, Camps, et al) have been defeated in their attempt to retain control of the club, but we wait to see what transpires next.  Lots of transfers in and out, one expects, as always.

It's not often that the American 'mainstream press' picks up on Spanish football, much less its economics, but Newsweek published a story recently (rather misleadingly titled "Spanish Soccer: World Champions (of Fraud)") and of course Valencia, as well as others come in for comment:

World Champions (of Fraud) /Newsweek

There isn't much new information here, and the thrust of the article, if not the headline, is that Spanish authorities are slowly taking action, but it's worth a quick read to remind ourselves how fortunate we are to have the ownership and management we have at Villarreal CF!

I have no idea of the methodology of this study, but here are the "best 50 global football brands":

Top 50 Football Club Brands/brandfinance

What I get from it is the EPL brand becoming more and more valuable--if you look at the clubs who moved up in the table, 8 of the 21 are EPL clubs.  It should also be noted MLS clubs are not included since brandfinance didn't have reliable data, apparently.  Maybe that's the problem with Argentina, too--I'd expect Boca Juniors and River Plate are more valuable "brands" than the Brazilian clubs that made it.  And Fiorentina ought to be in here somewhere, I would have thought.  But hey, I am not a marketer, so what do I know!

If you missed the Champions League Final, you missed a great one.  The always excellent zonal marking site has its review of the match here:

Real Madrid snatch late equalizer, are rampant in extra time/Zonal Marking

This was the first time that a CL final which went into extra time didn't require penalties.

Finally, Phil Ball (his son plays in the Real Sociedad youth system, as I recall) weighs in on Eibar and their need for share capital:

Could Eibar's rise to La Liga end before a ball is kicked?/The Guardian