Featured image credit: Rob Ridley
Atlético de Madrid’s majority shareholder is to pump €50m into the club to ensure the costs of developing the area around its stadium do not impact the team’s performance.
In a statement issued this week, the LaLiga club said Atlético Holdco’s investment will cover two-thirds of the €70.8m funding required for the City of Sports and Leisure project surrounding Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano. It has been reported that the total cost could be €350m, with as much as €258m of that coming from the LaLiga Impulso venture.
The arrangement was approved by club shareholders at a meeting this week.
The money will be raised through the issuance of 378,352 new shares, each costing €187.10. Club chief executive Miguel Ángel Gil Marín has committed to shareholders that Atlético HoldCo will exercise its preferential subscription right in the capital increase.
Atlético Holdco consists of CEO Gil, the Ares Management fund and club president Enrique Cerezo.
Gil said: “We are working to achieve a balance between investment in infrastructure and maintaining a competitive workforce.
“This is a balance that demonstrates the fact of having qualified for the last 12 years to play in the Champions League , as well as having finished this season among the eight best teams in Europe in the highest continental competition, while during that period one of Europe’s best stadiums was built, whose cost is practically amortised.”
Atletico’s sports city project
Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, initially announced in July 2022 that the City Council would give the green light to a new sports city project surrounding the Cívitas Metropolitano, home stadium of Atlético.
According to multiple Spanish media reports earlier this year, the project has now advanced to a point whereby the design and planning phase has been concluded, with applications made to the City Council for permits to commence work.
The development will have a total area of 265,000 square metres, according to El País, distributed among five plots, of which two will be designated for municipal use. Madrid City Council has transferred the land to Atlético for a period of 75 years in exchange for the club overseeing investment.
Atlético will partly fund the project through the LaLiga Impulso venture. This funding will reportedly amount to around €258m, with the club said to have approached investors to come up with the remaining funds and become involved with some elements of the project.
Of the project’s five plots, according to El Confidencial, only one is planned for purely sporting use by Atlético. This will be a High Performance Centre, with football fields and training facilities for the men’s and women’s first teams and also for the youth categories.
Two others will be dedicated to municipal sports facilities. One will house an athletics track and several football fields, while the second will see the development of four covered multi-sport facilities.
The remaining two plots will comprise the shopping centre; along with a leisure and multi-sport space that will include an artificial beach for surfing and a golf course, as well as spaces for climbing, skating, padel and zip lines.
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