Valencia owner Peter Lim: ‘I have a football club and I see what happens next. It’s nothing else ‘

For Peter Lim, owning Valencia CF, one of the most successful football clubs in Spain, has been “incredibly good for networking”, which has allowed the billionaire investor to join the top table of sport favorite of the world.

“Once we had dinner, everything [club] owners, in one of the Champions League finals, “inmate Lim told the Financial Times in a rare interview.” You have sheikhs, kings, mafia, black, white and yellow. And we were arguing about, ‘why are you going buy this player so? “We were like kids… this game can match everything.”

One of Singapore’s richest people with a fortune of $ 2.7 billion, according to Forbes, Lim describes Valencia as a “trophy asset”, allowing him to work with star footballers such as David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. Although the 67-year-old has no plans to sell Valencia, he believes he is worth much more than the 100 million euros he spent in 2014 to acquire a majority stake in the club.

This dispassionate attitude may be shared by other club owners, but it infuriates the Valencia fan base, which accuses him of using the team to get rich personally at the expense of the results on the pitch. This disconnect is shared across football, with an abyss growing between fans who see his club primarily as a local institution and investors drawn to financial opportunities to exploit the world’s sporting public.

Fans have been sent to Arsenal in England and Manchester United protests against its billionaire American owners, unleashed by theirs failed effort to launch a money investment European Super League. Valencia, historically one of the best clubs in Spain, was not considered big enough to be invited to participate in the breakaway competition.

“Look at the Super League, it’s purely [for big clubs to] survive, you don’t care about the fans, ”Lim said.“ Why? Because. . . you have an audience of 100 million fans in Asia. . . To own [the Super League club owners] have I ever considered local derbies, the inconvenience of seeing Wednesdays because I have to work the next day? They don’t care. “

Lim, however, argues that fans must understand that the football business model is broken.

Reduced finances

Significant shortage of income caused by the pandemic have exposed the increase in debt in leading clubs like The Spanish FC Barcelona i The Italian Inter Milan, who for years have spent a lot on players in search of silver.

The same problem exists in Valencia, which under Lim has made pre-tax profits in just one of its seven years in office with debts of nearly 200 million euros. Meanwhile, the team’s payroll has gone from 58.2 million euros in 2014 to 116.4 million euros in 2020, according to consulting firm KPMG.

To stop the trend, Lim authorized the sale of players at the beginning of this season, saying that Valencia is confident in the promotion of young players from his academy.

Valencia fans accuse Lim of being a poor goalkeeper, orienting the club towards mediocrity. Head coach Javi Gracia was fired last week with the team in 14th place in the league, Spain’s top division, closer to relegation than from qualifying for lucrative European competitions.

Gracia is the eighth coach to leave Valencia under Lim. Among the shortest appointments was that of Gary Neville, the former Manchester United player who had little technical experience and lasted only four months. Lim is a inverter in Salford City, a small English club owned by Neville and other former United players.

“All supporters have lost faith in him,” said Marcos Colomer, a member of Libertad VCF, a group of supporters in Valencia who helped organize a protest against Lim’s property this weekend. “It remains to be seen when he will find exactly the opportunity to make more money by selling to the highest bidder.”

The son of a fishmonger, Lim was a stockbroker before an early bet by Singapore-based palm oil company Wilmar bore fruit. It would sell its shares in what became one of the world’s largest agro-industrial companies for $ 1.5 billion in 2010. Beyond football, its investments include hospitals, an architecture firm and real estate.

The same year an offer fell to buy Liverpool. This effort caused several clubs to look for him as a potential acquirer, including Valencia, who were in financial difficulties.

In the early 2000s, Valencia played and lost two Champions League finals. Determined to win Europe’s most coveted trophy, the club’s executives spent a lot on players. They also began building a new stadium, funded by a plan to sell the Mestalla, its existing land, to real estate developers.

These people argue “because we are Valencians, we know the club”. But, under the Valencians, the club failed, right?

The financial crisis of 2008 stopped construction. Valencia’s debts left him on the verge of collapse. “I do not want to run [the club] down, though. . .[Valencia]he is 102 years old, ”said Lim. “He has never won the Champions League and [the past leaders] did you want to win it at all costs? You have rocks in your head ”.

Valencian supporters had hailed the arrival of Lim as a benefactor in the line of Roman Abramovich or Chelsea Sheikh Mansour of Manchester City, believing he would dive into deep pockets to fund the team’s rise.

The reality has been more erratic. Under Lim’s tenure, the club has it qualified by the Champions League in three seasons, and two years ago he won the Copa del Rey in the Copa de España. These maxims have been interspersed with inconsistencies and poor results.

The unfinished stadium in Valencia remains an empty shell. Efforts to fund construction fell through earlier this season. “The debt we should have is not sustainable,” Lim said, though he hopes to find a “solution” to complete the project.

Gaspar Romero, a lifelong fan whose grandfather was the club’s accountant, is skeptical: Every year the debt increases and the players have to sell ”.

Lim rejects critics with his leadership for “trying to make sure I don’t sell the club to anyone other than them. These people argue” because we’re Valencians, we know the club. “But under the Valencians, the club goes fail, right? ”

Under scrutiny

Fans denounce Lim’s predisposition to trade in players and close ties with Jorge Mendes, the Portuguese super agent who has agreed on many player offers for Valencia. Lim defends the relationship, saying many of Mendes’ customers, such as João Cancelo and André Gomes, were later sold with profits.

Before buying Valencia, Lim was, however, involved in “third-party ownership”, acquiring the financial rights of a player and recovering the return of future transfers. The practice was banned by FIFA, the governing body of international football, a year after Lim bought Valencia through its Hong Kong-based investment vehicle Meriton.

Meriton’s past collaboration in the TPO arrangements has been scrutinized by FIFA, but Lim denies having been involved in those agreements. According to the club’s accounts, Meriton has lent the club approximately 50 million euros, a debt that is guaranteed against the future sales of eight first team players.

Lim described the deal as an “embargo” that guarantees Meriton will rank higher than other creditors if Valencia defaults. The Spanish lender Bankia also has ten million euros. Once the Meriton loan was repaid, Lim insisted the commercial profits would remain at the club.

Unconvinced by these answers, Libertad VCF wants to convince thousands of individual Valencian shareholders to join forces with a combined stake of 5%. Within this threshold, under Spanish law, the group may acquire more ability to examine the club’s operations, such as access to contracts and even the appointment of a board member.

But Lim says the allegations of using Valencia to speculate in the player trade or to profit from the club in other ways are very important.

“I can do 101 things to make money and money that I think I can control better,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. I wake up, I have a football club and I see what happens next. It’s nothing more.

“It simply came to our notice then [fans], but among us, among friends, we say that the smallest things give you the biggest headaches ”.