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Eibar: The little club that could

Roar Guru
30th July, 2014
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Roar Guru
30th July, 2014
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1161 Reads

What do FC Barcelona and SD Eibar have in common? Two things. Firstly, they play in the same colours.

Barcelona lent Eibar a set of jerseys back in 1944 as Eibar could not afford their own, and they have kept the same colours ever since.

The other is that they are now both members of the top flight of Spanish football, La Liga.

We all know about Barcelona, with their average crowds of 71,000, over 650 million Euros in annual turnover, players like Lionel Messi, and over 1,335 official fan clubs around the world.

Things were tough for the newly formed SD Eibar in 1944 and are still tough, but that has not stopped the club in its success of promotion to La Liga for the very first time in its history.

For some background information, Eibar is a little town in the Gipuzkoa region of the Basque Country in Northern Spain. It’s situated along the motorway wedged between the foothills of the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean, midway between regional cities, San Sebastian and Bilbao.

The town has a population of 27,000, making it the smallest club ever to have a team in the top level of Spanish football. It is not a stunning place like its neighbour San Sebastian (home of Real Sociedad) or an industrial powerhouse like Bilbao (home of Athletico Bilbao).

Eibar is home to a rapidly declining firearms industry, thus giving the team the same nickname as Arsenal – the Gunners. Indeed the club has relied heavily upon loan players from the neighbouring Basque teams, with three Real Sociedad players set to return home this season.

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The club prefers to field teams with a high content of locals but does not have any restrictions like Athletico Bilbao. Last year 13 of the squad of 23 were Basque. Over the last decade stars such as Xabi Alonso and David Silva spent some of their formative years learning their trade at SD Eibar.

Furthermore, the club’s home ground, the very boutique Estadio Municipal de Ipurua, holds only 5,250 (there are plans to quickly change this to 6,700). Crowds during the past season when they won Segunda Liga were only 3,000 but can be expected to be at capacity in La Liga.

The promotion of such a small club to the big league has come on the back of some quality coaching and a very well run and efficient front office. In fact, SD Eibar has zero debt and has been described by the Spanish League president, Javier Tebas, as a “model club”.

The economy of Spain has been in the doldrums for nearly a decade now and many big spending clubs have experienced financial difficulties. Statistics show that the total debt of the 40 teams in the top two leagues exceeds 3.6 billion Euros, and the clubs owe over 663 million in taxes.

Therefore, quite a few measures and rules have been introduced by the Spanish government to stop clubs from going over the edge. This is where SD Eibar’s promotion to La Liga nearly came unstuck. Basically, Eibar did not have enough capital on their books. They only had share capital of 422,253 Euros but under the laws needed to find another 1.7 million not only to be promoted but to avoid relegation.

The fact that Eibar’s annual budget was going to increase from 3.5 million to 16 million Euros with promotion was not considered. With the club’s members being the shareholders, and a white knight not allowed by the club’s constitution (shareholders are limited to 100,000 Euros each), a worldwide share offering began.

In the words of club president Alex Aranzabal, “the last thing we wanted is for some businessman to swoop in and turn Eibar into whatever he wants, as if he had picked up some candy”.

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The club had until August to raise the money and did it with ease, with 8,000 people from 47 countries purchasing small numbers of shares. Ex-player and superstar Xabi Alonso was instrumental in using social media to raise awareness and promote the share offering.

With a crisis averted, the tiny club in the Basque region will take its place among the big boys with its first game against neighbours Real Sociedad at home on Sunday, August 24.

I can’t wait until they play another team from another autonomous part of Spain with similar coloured jerseys at home in March 2015. Who will face the bigger shock? Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez in the tiny 5,000 seat stadium? Or the new boys (who get to play earlier in the season on the hallowed grounds of Camp Nou)?

Even if this club can win another battle and survive relegation, an added problem awaits. La Liga rules are that stadium seating must be a minimum of 15,000 after two years in La Liga, something not possible in the cosy confines of Estadio Ipurua even if they count all the locals who watch from their apartment balconies.

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