Welcome to Real Oviedo

Dear New Shareholder,

This booklet is designed to welcome you, as a new shareholder to the historic club Real Oviedo. You, and many others like you have helped to save the club from certain financial crisis. The fans of Real Oviedo offer their thanks in keeping the club alive, but more importantly than that you have offered new hope to a once great team.

Since Real Oviedo opened shares up to fans in an at-tempt to raise much needed finances the response has been overwhelming. With the help of British journal-ist Sid Lowe, and ex Oviedo alumni including Michu, Mata and Cazorla, the world has united and put their hands in their pockets. So much so that Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world has seen the value of the support behind the club and has heavily invested the money that will ensure the club continues to exist.

You are a new shareholder thanks to a gift, and you are always welcome at the club. Hopefully one day you will be able to visit the beautiful Spanish community of Asturias and will be able to take in a game amongst your new brothers in blue.

Congratulations we are all Real Oviedo!

Contents

Over the next several pages we will look at the his-tory behind Real Oviedo. We will study the wonder-ful story of how they were saved by fan investment from around the world. And we will show some of the international press stories that helped bring the campaign to life.

We hope that you enjoy your new club, and have fun learning about them.

Section 1:Club Honours/ Current SquadSection 2:Club HistorySection 3:Real Oviedo in the MediaSection 4:Links

Real Oviedo Club Honours

Team

Segunda División: 1932–33, 1951–52, 1957–58, 1971–72, 1974–75

Copa de la Liga (Segunda División): 1984–85

Tercera División: 2003–04, 2004–05, 2007–08, 2008–09

Individual

Pichichi TrophyLa Liga: Isidro Lángara (1933–34, 1934–35, 1935–36), Marianín (1972–73)Segunda División: Isidro Lángara (1932–33), Eduardo Gómez “Lalo” (1957–58), Galán (1971–72), Carlos (1987–88)Tercera División: Diego Cervero (2004–05, 2007–08, 2008–09)

Zamora TrophySegunda División: Óscar Álvarez (1931–32, 1932–33), Lombardía (1971–72)Tercera División: Rafael Ponzo (2003–04), Oinatz Aulestia (2008–09)

Current Squad

No. Position Player

1 GK Dani Barrio2 DF David Fernández3 DF Javi Cantero4 DF Álvaro Cuello5 DF Pedro Baquero6 MF Aitor Sanz7 MF Iker Alegre8 MF Pascual Puente9 FW Diego Cervero10 FW Manu Busto11 FW Dani Aquino13 GK Mario Ruyales14 MF Javi Casares15 MF Xavi Moré16 MF Galder Cerrajería17 MF Josep Señé18 DF Lucien Owona19 FW Óscar Martínez20 MF Ivan Rubio21 DF Martín Mantovani24 MF Jandro

Real Oviedo is a Spanish football club based in Oviedo, in the autonomous community of Asturias. Founded on 26 March 1926, it currently plays in Segunda División B - Group 1.

The club plays in blue shirts and white shorts in the Estadio Carlos Tartiere, which seats 30,500 specta-tors. It was the first team from the region ever to play in La Liga.

In the all time league table for the Spanish top divi-sion, Oviedo rank in 17th place.Founded in 1926 after a merge with Stadium Ovet-ense, Oviedo first reached La Liga seven years later. Between 1933–36, the team gained success because of their revolutionary approach to football tactics. Their attacking quartet of Emilín, Galé, Herrerita and Isidro Lángara (all represented Spain in this period), as well as Casuco and Ricardo Gallart modernised the game with their pace and running off the ball tied with sharp passing and one-touch football, played in a style 30/40 years before its time, being dubbed De-lanteras Eléctricas (“The electric forwards”); all this was connected with a rigid training and fitness regime started by a former manager of the club, English Fred Pentland.

Lángara won the Pichichi Trophy three years in a row prior to the Spanish Civil War, as Oviedo broke all scoring records (174 goals in 62 league games). With the outbreak of the conflict, however, the team broke up: Lángara emigrated to South America, Herrerita and Emilín signed with FC Barcelona, Galé with Rac-ing de Santander and Gallart with Racing de Ferrol.

When football in the country resumed in 1939, Oviedo were relegated to the second division, as their pitch was deemed unplayable – Francisco Franco’s troops had used the stadium as an ammunition dump. During the following decades, the club bounced back between the first (38 seasons) and second levels (32), the high point being qualifying for the UEFA Cup after finishing a best-ever third in 1962–63 (ranking joint-first with Real Madrid after the first 15 rounds), while the lowest was the side’s first relegation to Segunda División B, in 1978 (for a single season).

With the FIFA World Cup to be held on home soil in 1982, the Estadio Carlos Tartiere was completely renewed, the first match being held with the Chilean national team (0–0). In 1984–85 Oviedo won the soon-to-be-defunct Spanish League Cup (second division), after successively defeating UD Salamanca, Bilbao Ath-letic, CF Lorca Deportiva, CE Sabadell FC and Atlético Madrileño (the latter with a 2–1 aggregate in the final).

In 1988 Oviedo returned to the top division, after ousting RCD Mallorca in the promotion playoffs (2–1 on aggregate, with striker Carlos, who would fea-ture prominently for the club in the following years, scoring one of the goals), and remained in that level for 13 consecutive seasons – in 1990–91 it finished sixth, qualifying once again for Europe, and being knocked out in the first round by Genoa C.F.C. of Italy (2–3, although Oviedo bounced back from that defeat immediately, with a 2–1 win at the Camp Nou over Barcelona).

After being relegated two consecutive times, Real Oviedo suffered severe economic troubles, which, when coupled with a profound lack of institutional support from the city’s government, resulted in the team’s inability to pay its players. The club was then forced to drop all the way to the fourth division of Spanish football, for the 2003–04 season. At this point the team nearly folded, but eventually recovered and regrouped, returning to level three in the following campaign.

Oviedo lasted two further seasons before dropping down a level again. In another playoff against a Mallorca team – this time the reserves, the club returned again to the third division; however, its survival remained at risk in the fol-lowing years, due to continuing financial difficulties.These financial difficulties continued into the 2012-13 season, when the club called on supporters to buy shares in the club. A few footballers, notably Santi Cazorla, Juan Mata and Michu who all started their careers there, have of-fered financial support in an attempt to save the club from bankruptcy.

Real Oviedo, a soccer team in the proud province of Asturias, is about 300 miles north of Madrid and about a million miles behind Real Madrid, the powerhouse that along with F.C. Barcelona defines Spanish soccer.

Once a top-tier club, Real Oviedo tumbled as low as the fourth division, undone by years of financial negli-gence and political strife. Team staff members worked in a stadium bathroom when the power was turned off in their offices. Players revolted after not being paid. The current owner, charged with tax evasion, is missing. The club’s tax bill of 1.9 million euros, or $2.4 million, is due at the end of the year. Bankruptcy beckoned.

So about two weeks ago, Real Oviedo sold shares in the team online for 10.75 euros, or about $14. The club may never rival Real Madrid or F.C. Barcelona, but the effort, which ends Saturday, might keep it alive.

Fueled by Twitter messages by a British sportswriter in Spain, fans from Britain, South America, China and elsewhere have snapped up thousands of shares. Real Oviedo alumni playing in the English Premier League bought some and urged fans to do the same. Real Ma-drid said it would buy 100,000 euros’ worth of shares. One fan near Portland, Ore., promised to get a Real Oviedo tattoo if others bought 100 shares. She got the tattoo.

The New York TimesBy KEN BELSONPublished: November 15, 2012

“We are living in a remarkable moment in the history of Real Oviedo,” said Pedro Zuazua, one of four board members installed in July to help overhaul the club. “We were desperate. We thought the club was going to disappear.”

Fans with four or more shares can attend the annual shareholders meeting in Spain. And the club, grateful for the support, has promised any shareholder living overseas free admission to Real Oviedo home games.

The club has been clear that buying shares in the third-division team is little more than a quixotic gesture. They will not be traded on any organized exchange, and because so many are being issued, the value will prob-ably diminish. Their appeal, however, is more universal. “It’s a romantic view of ‘why not help these people recover their club and keep it away from big investors,’ ” said Juan Ramon, another board member added to represent Real Oviedo supporters.

When Michu turns up at the Emirates Stadium with his Swansea City team-mates this weekend he will seek out Arsenal’s playmaker Santi Cazorla, give him a hug and talk. They will talk about life in a new country and life back in the old country. Conversation will no doubt turn, as it has done of-ten since the start of November, to the club where they started their career and the momentous month it has just been through, a club that has been reborn thanks not least to them.

Michu, Cazorla and Chelsea’s Juan Mata all began their careers with Real Oviedo in Asturias, northern Spain. Right now there may be no club in the Premier League that can lay claim to having discovered and developed three current players of that level. “Oviedo taught Santi and Mata to play,” says Michu – all of which may not seem that remarkable but for one thing: Oviedo are not a first division side and have not been for a decade. It is 10 years since they even played in the second division and they currently play in Spain’s sec-ond division B, a third tier made up of four divisions of 20 teams each.

It is a territory Michu knows well; he has been there with them. He was with them this month, too, as they faced an even worse fate: at the start of this month Oviedo were on the verge of disappearing forever, their president seeking legal advice as to how to carry out a liquidation. One current Oviedo player says Michu has been on the phone constantly: “What’s hap-pening? Are we going to make it?” The answer, in the end, was: “Yes, thanks to you.”

That a historic club survived owes much to the three Premier League players and the Premier League’s reach.

Michu, Cazorla and Mata all put their hands in their pockets and carried the torch. A month later the out-look could not be more different. Oviedo have more shareholders than any other club in Spain and one of them is the richest man in the world. Now, say the new owners, it is time to take Oviedo back to where they belong – the first division.

They have not been there since 2001, when they were relegated at Mallorca on the final day. Their financial problems had begun and there were political battles too: the club’s president and the city’s mayor represent-ed opposite sides of the political spectrum.Another relegation followed the next summer when players formally denounced the club to the players’ union for non-payment to go with on-pitch failure. And the year after that the local government withdrew support for the club and put its weight behind third-division Astur instead. “All that is left,” said one board member at the time, “is to sign the death warrant.”

The GuardianBy SID LOWEPublished: November 29, 2012

It went without signing. Juan Ramón González formed part of the supporters’ association, now he is on the board at Oviedo. He has been the key fig-ure at the club over the last three weeks. Looking back on 2003, he is fond of quoting a line from the Spanish version of Neil Young’s Like a Hurricane: “The poison saved you”.

Subsidies were poured into Astur, their kit was changed to blue and white, like Oviedo, the badge was altered and they even changed their name to Oviedo AFC. The man who had played more games for Oviedo than anyone else, Berto, was signed up and plans were made to take Oviedo’s municipally-owned Carlos Tartiere stadium away. But instead of killing the club, it was a reawakening.

The “Real” in Oviedo’s name took on greater signifi-cance than ever. Oviedo fans rebelled, mobilising to save their club, protesting, raising money, forcing the local government’s hand. They called it Espíritu 2003 – the spirit of 2003. The council backtracked, but the club’s situation remained far from ideal: playing on what were little better than park pitches, thousands turning up to see them in arenas not even built to house hundreds.

Since relegation from the top flight Oviedo have never gone under 10,000 season-ticket holders. Right now, only two teams in the second division A, let alone the second division B or the 17-division third division, can claim as many. Amid the uncertainty, in 2003, Oviedo lost Cazorla and Mata to Villarreal and Real Madrid re-

spectively; Cazorla was 17, Mata was 15. This summer they won the European Championship together; be-tween them they have raised almost €50m (£40.5m) in transfer fees. But they did look back. Every summer they return and they have remained members.

Michu’s path to the Premier League was different. He made his debut in the third division at 17 and spent four seasons at Oviedo; the club’s current idol, the striker Diego Cervero, is among his best friends. To-gether they won promotion from the third division to the second B in front of 25,000 fans.

Michu has lived Oviedo’s darkest hours, later joining second division Celta. He turned down the opportu-nity to play first division football because the club that offered him the chance were Sporting Gijón, Oviedo’s rivals. Eventually he got another opportunity at Rayo Vallecano. Fifteen goals and he became one of the Pre-mier League’s bargains of the season.

It is notoriously hard to escape the second division B, where four divisions funnel into one and an almost perfect season can be destroyed by one bad game in the play-offs, and Oviedo did not escape. Their prob-lems were getting worse. There was another false dawn, another false idol. In 2006 Alberto González took a controlling share in the club. He paid €200,000 for a team bus that was too big to park in most of the grounds where Oviedo played. He did not pay social security or tax to the inland revenue, then disap-peared. He is wanted on two counts of fraud with an international warrant taken out for his arrest, and is believed to be in Cuba or Panamá.

And that was where the board came in and the fans mobilised once more. With González’s shares frozen, a new five-man board of Toni Fidalgo, Pedro Zuazua, Juan Ramón Torla, Sabino López and Jorge Sanchez took over in the summer, with the backing of the sec-ond and third biggest shareholders. Supporters were represented at last, their voice heard. One of the two shareholders represented was the local council under a new mayor, an Oviedo fan called Agustín Iglesias Caunedo, who had been working for a solution.

But still the club were on the verge of going out of business. They needed €1.9m immediately to avoid a winding-up order, €2.5m to make it to the end of the season and €4m to secure the club’s medium-term fu-ture. The plan was a share issue, at €10.75 per share. Not only might that have served to raise the cash the club desperately needed, it would also definitively dilute González’s stake.

But would they really make it? Privately they feared not but it was the last throw of the dice. The response was gigantic, unexpected. Cazorla, Michu and Mata were fundamental in giving the campaign international projection. They, like Atlético Madrid striker Adrián, who made his debut for Oviedo at 17, the year after Mi-chu did, all promoted the drive to buy shares and they bought shares themselves. Club sources describe the amounts as “significant”.

Momentum built; the campaign grew. Real Madrid bought €100,000 worth of shares, which they ceded to the local council. A Save Real Oviedo banner appeared in the stands during Celtic-Barcelona, World Cup win-ners anonymously bought shares and on the Sunday afternoon, midway through the process, more people went to watch Oviedo at the Tartiere than watched Barcelona at Mallorca.

Their opponents were Real Madrid C; their players, too, bought shares. Across the front of the stand a huge banner was directed at supporters round the world who had bought shares: Thanks, grazie, gracias, merci, efharisto, it ran.

The response from Oviedo fans was even greater. “The fans are the best thing about the club,” Michu told the Sun. “They never cease to amaze me.” The spirit of 2003 was rekindled. The example had been set in the sum-mer when one morning fans turned up at the training ground armed with detergent, brooms and cans of paint. Once the training ground was repaired their next stop was the stadium. No one on the board got much

sleep for weeks and they fought to make the most of every gesture, every opportunity. A PayPal account was set up in a matter of hours.In two weeks €1.93m worth of shares were bought by more than 20,000 people in more than 60 coun-tries. Small shareholders alone had rescued the club in the short term; long-term viability was secured too. If anything could convince investors that Oviedo was worth the effort, this could. At the same time as all that was going on, the journalists Paco González and Marcos López hatched a plan via the radio show Tiempo de Juego. They called Arturo Elías, son-in-law of the Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, and joked that he should come and save the club.

Many a true word said in jest. Behind the scenes López kept up the pressure, brought Elías into contact with Oviedo’s president, Toni Fidalgo, and silently, skilfully saw through negotiations. On the final day of the share issue Slim bought €2m worth of shares; further investment is anticipated but the message is a cautious one.

From the verge of extinction Oviedo had now at-tracted the world’s richest man. Celso González holds 4.16%, the council holds 8.4%, and Alberto González, still in hiding, has seen control wrested from his hands with his holding dropping to 12.41%. Carlos Slim’s Carso holds 32.44%. But he is not the majority shareholder, the fans are: 40.81% of the club is owned by small shareholders and Oviedistas. This weekend two of them will meet in north London and celebrate a new beginning.

They called Arturo Elías, son-in-law of the Mexican telecommuni-cations magnate Carlos Slim, and joked that he should come and save the club.

A journalist, an appeal on social media, a hoax phone call, Real Madrid CF and Mexican billion-aire Carlos Slim make an unlikely band of saviors for a struggling soccer club but Real Oviedo has one or all of these to thank for its continuing exist-ence.

The historic club, which currently plies its trade in Segunda B, was in desperate need of 1.9 million euros to stay afloat. An appeal was launched by Sid Lowe, The Guardian’s Liga correspondent, for people to buy shares in the struggling club at 10 euros apiece. Real Madrid chipped in with 100,000 euros and the ball was really rolling.Slim’s involvement came through a hoax telephone call placed to his right-hand man, Arturo Elías Ayub, by a radio station in which a presenter variously pre-tended to be Real director Emilio Butragueño, former player Roberto Carlos and former club executive Jorge Valdano.

Ayub promptly took to the ether to confirm that he had bought 30 shares in the club. Later, he stated that Slim had invested two million euros in Oviedo after hearing of its plight. Ayub said Oviedo’s huge and pas-sionate fan base had been a key factor in the move.

More than a business investment, it was a personal move to support the team’s fans”“The team has a lot of qualities, an impressive his-tory and a strong following,” Ayub said. “More than a business investment, it was a personal investment to support the team’s fans.”

El PaísBy TONO CALLEJAPublished: November 20, 2012

Slim’s toe-dipping into the Spanish league follows his participation in two Mexican first division teams, León and Pachuca, earlier this year. Those purchases were intended to strengthen Slim’s online sports broadcast-ing base in the Central American country, where he is under a government ban preventing him from offering broadcast television. For Oviedo, it opens the door to loan signings from the two clubs.

Last weekend, fans of Real Oviedo living in Madrid took advantage of the club’s match against Atlético Madrid B to show their support for the Asturian team. There were hundreds more away fans than Atlético support-ers at the game. “Carlos Slim investing in Oviedo gives us a lot of security. I think at the end of the day he did it because of the amazing support the team has,” said Borja García, the leader of the Peña Azul fans’ group. Every time Oviedo plays away from home, García and his colleagues hire a bus to travel to the game.

Also at Saturday’s match in Madrid was Lowe, who was approached by many fans thanking him for his effort. “It’s a slightly uncomfortable situation professionally because, being the subject of the information, I can’t write about Real Oviedo in the newspaper,” he noted.However, after some haranguing from Oviedo forward Diego Cervero, Lowe did agree to take the honorific kick-off in the Carlos Tartiere stadium next weekend.

Real Oviedo Links

VideoEl Dia Despues | SOS Real OviedoA video thanking new shareholders from all over the world for helping to save the club.

ImagesAlwarette FlickrA collection of stunning, high definition images show-ing Real Oviedo in action.

Real Oviedo 1926A huge selection of images documenting the history of Real Oviedo, including more recent images.

Twitter@ RealOviedoFC - Official Club Twitter@SidLowe - Journalist and key to Oviedo’s Success@Er_Divi - Gambetta’s Real Oviedo Correspondant

Match Reportswww.GambettaFootball.comEach week Gambetta’s man in Oviedo, David Ro-driguez Glez offers up to date news and match reports from Real Oviedo.

Official Club Storewww.tiendarealoviedo.comPerfect for purchasing official club merchandise such as football shirts and scarves. Can be shipped all over the world.

About This Document...This document was produced by Andrew Gillooley so that new shareholders receiving shares purchased as a gift could be given something that offers more information about the team that they are now a part of. It is 100% unofficial and was designed with no intention for any financial benefit, without any contact with the club or any subsequent organisations.

All images and videos used have links to their original location in the link section of this document. In my rush to put this to-gether I have been unable to receive permission for the use of all these. If this represents a problem for any copyright holders I offer my sincerest apologies and will take the offending material down immediately.

Andrew Gillooley is a football mad Englishman now living in Canada. He works for EA on the FIFA series of videogames and co-founded Gambetta Football, a website dedicated to serious and intelligent analysis of football. As soon as he saw the chance to become part of Real Oviedo he jumped at the opportunity and is proud to be a shareholder in the club. He can be found on Twitter @AndyGillooley.