San Rocky de Lepe

I've blogged earlier about the situation at San Roque de Lepe, a Spanish football club which appears to be owned by the same people who own Charlton. With the news that Charlton's friendly against Sporting Lisbon won't now take place at the San Roque stadium, I looked up what's been happening.

Here's the fullest story I could find. Using my limited Spanish and my more limited business knowledge, it seems that the club owed €150,000, mainly to players, and that if that debt wasn't paid, the club would be relegated to the 3rd division. The Town Council of Lepe has organised a deal whereby local businesses have paid the debt. In return the (former) owners of the club have transferred 51% of the shares to the Council, which is therefore the majority shareholder. It is suggested that some of the British owners didn't want to retain ownership, and that is why the owners as a whole didn't pay off the debts.

So this explains why the Charlton match isn't being played there any more. Does it shed any light on what's going on with the ownership of Charlton? We've read that one director has left, apparently unexpectedly. Perhaps this means there's a split within the owners of the Addicks. This is all I can work out for now. I expect there will be more to come, but have no idea if this is good or bad news.

If anyone understands the Spanish story better than I do, please comment!