Nine years, seven months and 24 days later, the business conglomerate of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is no longer the head of Real Oviedo. The blue club changed hands yesterday in a movement that shook the foundations of Oviedo: the Pachuca Group, also Mexican and owned by Aztec businessman Jesús Martínez, took over 51% of the entity’s shares. The future objective is clear: “Make Oviedo bigger”. The announcement of the sale of the club came as a surprise in a statement and only the approval of the Higher Sports Council is pending.
The Carso Group maintains 20% of the total, but it will no longer be up to date with sports management, personified until now in the figure of Arturo Elías, Slim’s son-in-law, who steps aside and will be a “spectator”. Pachuca, who is dedicated to sports management and has several soccer teams in Mexico, will arrive with new people at the blue club. His objective is to give a push to the management so that Oviedo returns to the First Division, the pending objective that Carso had. The new property wants a project that excites and adds.
For now, and from now on, there will be at least two new people who take the reins of the club, appointed directly by Jesús Martínez and who will arrive in the city in the coming days.
The most important is Martín Peláez, a 50-year-old Mexican of Asturian descent, who will be the new president of Oviedo. Peláez is currently the vice president of Pachuca, a soccer club that belongs to Jesús Martínez’s network and a person of his utmost confidence. He has been in the business group for 25 years and from now on he will be the highest decision maker in the city, always behind Martínez himself. Peláez will be in the city, will manage the club and will update Jesús Martínez, attentive to the other side of the pond. He will be something like Pachuca’s Joaquín del Olmo.
On the other hand, the plan of the new rectors is to maintain the current council of Oviedo, made up of Jorge Menéndez Vallina, Manuel Paredes and Fernando Corral. Pachuca has good reports from the directors, gathered from his conversations with Carso, and his plans are that they continue to be linked to Oviedo. Of course, with other functions and less participation in the day to day. The board of Oviedo has already made itself available to Pachuca to help in whatever is necessary in the shareholder change.
In addition to Martín Peláez, who will be announced today as president, Pachuca will incorporate another person of his utmost confidence, who will take care of the administration and finances of the blue club, a position that until now was held by Federico González, who in principle will continue in the entity, although with an expiration date. That new position, of someone also trusted by Pachuca, will be that of corporate media vice president and will be held by José Ramón Fernández, who at least initially will be up to date with the club. The future of the rest of the main directors of the club, such as César Martín or David Mata, remains to be seen, although the intention of the new directors of the entity is not to make a great revolution of names, but rather in the method.
Pachuca’s arrival was unknown to most members of the club until yesterday, when two minutes past seven in the afternoon, Oviedo released a statement informing of the shareholder change. Board members were already aware of the Carso group’s plans, but other high-ranking employees found out through social media. Subsequently, it was Federico González, until yesterday the general manager, who was in charge of transferring the changes to the club’s offices. Today in the afternoon, starting at 5:30 p.m., there will be a conference in which Jesús Martínez and Arturo Elías will explain the movements.
The shareholder change occurs in a context of excellent relations between the two business groups, which have already collaborated in the past in Mexican soccer. The movements, in fact, have been brewing for two years and in June 2021 the agreement was close. There were talks, although the operation was never completed. Going back even further, Pachuca was already interested in Oviedo in 2008, although that did not go beyond trial. Now it is a reality. “May the hearts of the Oviedistas feel illusion and confidence. We are in the best hands. Have no doubt that mine will continue to beat close to you, full of gratitude and pride for being part of your past, present and future. Let’s go with everything,” Arturo Elías wrote yesterday. Sources from the Carso group linked to Oviedo explained yesterday that the arrival of Pachuca will be “very good” for the entity and “it will be of great use to Oviedo.”
The reading that is done in Oviedo is that the new Mexican group comes to finish off the work of Carso, who landed at the club in 2012, being in Second B and in a dire economic situation. Overcome the money problems, and stabilized the club in professional football, Slim’s conglomerate believes that Oviedo needs new winning stimuli that Pachuca can provide. From the blue club it is insisted that Carso is still in Oviedo, with Arturo Elías as a “spectator” from this moment of the future successes of the entity.
For some time now, people close to the Mexican showed some wear after so many years a day in Oviedo. Club sources also link what happened to the arrival of the Orlegi group in Gijón, a fact that could have accelerated the times in Elías’ decision.
Pachuca arrives, they say, to “add” and his idea is to focus on sports management to take Oviedo to the First Division. The intentions of the Aztecs, at least on arrival, are to keep those currently responsible for the sports management headed by Tito Blanco, who will continue at the club.
Pachuca does not want to waste time and intends to sign great players to make a leap in quality, although the Mexican group insists that they arrive to “add and contribute their grain of sand” to Oviedo, which since yesterday already has a new leader and new ownership : Pachuca.
The first statements by Jesús Martínez in Mexico after becoming the new owner of Real Oviedo
“We go responsibly,” says Jesús Martínez
“Our group is different, for us our model is the most important and special thing. The educational aspect, creating a soccer university in Mexico, seeing so many kids working in the group is a satisfaction, we give them that preparation. Our model is going to continue to prevail, for us the most important thing is the social, the educational and, later, the sports and the commercial. It is what we are going to learn, since in the Spanish league they are at another level of structure and business. There is a great Going up is very difficult, because you fight with those who go down, who have three times more budget, so it is an important challenge, but we take it on, as I have told Arturo Elías and Don Carlos (Slim). a lot of social responsibility and a lot of responsibility to give results to the fans. We are here to manage because the owners are the fans, they have to judge us so that we don’t get off course. I have a lot with bail. We are not going to touch anything”. “For two years we have been talking with Arturo to have this company, do not think it is because now the Orlegi Group had it, Arturo can confess it, a year ago we did not arrive because of a difference of X million euros . Carlos (Slim) is tough negotiating and we couldn’t look bad. I am very pleased that the Orlegi Group, which has worked quite well with its model, our model is very different, they are two models that have been successful and I am very pleased to see people invest in Spain and God willing that these two hobbies have that illusion of being in First”.
