“Mareo is a sensational work from the seventies.” Alejandro Irarragorri addressed some of the keys to the Mareo reform projected by Orlegi. An intervention that he sees as more than necessary because “it is an installation of visionaries that has been trapped in the past. We have a great opportunity to improve our present.” Some improvements that have already begun with the fencing of part of the facility to begin with the improvements of the first of the three sentences into which the club has divided its performance. While the first is focused on recovering the residence and improving the clinic, changing rooms and gym in the central building and the second phase will have the renovation of the offices as the protagonist next to the futsal court on the sand field (still under study). , the third is in the air. The president of Sporting gave some clue about the plans: to improve the Dizziness fields and “the fan experience”.
It has not been decided when or how Sporting will carry out the third phase of works in Mareo. In any case, Alejandro Irarragorri responded to shareholder Edgar Fernández with some ideas that are on the table in this regard. “We want to improve the fields,” he announced without wanting to specify whether the investment will focus on expanding the stands of field number 1, or will it be something simply related to the state of the grass on the fields. He placed more emphasis on the intention to “enhance the fan experience.” He did not verbalize it, but there is interest in turning around the current offer of the cafeteria, considering even changing the concession of the hotel uses of the Soccer School and the Gijón municipal, currently in the hands of Sodexo. In addition, it is also valued to create exclusive offers that take fans to Mareo and El Molinón through “premium” initiatives, as reported by LA NUEVA ESPAÑA.
“Now it’s time to improve the training and high-performance areas, those that are within the area of Applied Sports Sciences,” stressed Alejandro Irarragorri, to put all the attention on that first phase of reform in Mareo that is already underway. The rojiblanco president thanked the shareholders for their attendance and participation, although he repeated on several occasions the importance of “understanding in which forum we are talking about what”, interpreting that many of the questions and requests were directed more in an “amateur” key. “Here we are going to speak as shareholders, as partners in a business,” he stated. The first to tell him that his intervention “is out of place” was Adrián Núñez, president of the Unión de Peñas Sportinguistas, ending by inviting him to “hold a meeting with the association, which we value.” Núñez had questioned Irarragorri if he had found the expected financial state of the club when he considered starting the purchase process. A question that remained unanswered. He was also critical of the “excessive increase in fertilizers, which we do not understand, especially in some areas.” “In the best of scenarios we are going to lose 7 million euros. Here we have to make decisions that transform the club to take us where we all want,” added the Mexican, referring to the First Division. Finally, he once again referred to the purpose of “continuing to generate value” around Sporting as the main objective that Orlegi is looking for at the head of the rojiblanco club. “Both in the city and in Asturias,” insisted Irarragorri in a search to find “a different economic vocation” for which he sees the World Cup candidacy as something that “will be good for everyone. If not, we will die trying.”
The president meets with the rojiblanca squad in Mareo before the trip to Huesca
“To go there we have to organize ourselves.” The objective of promotion to the First Division was on the lips of Alejandro Irarragorri during the shareholders’ meeting. To do this, he recalled the meeting held with businessmen this week in El Molinón. A detail that he gave as an example so that the strength of the team goes beyond the green. “We all need to be united. In this meeting I learned that they do not participate actively with the team because they had lost confidence”, explained the rojiblanco president. “We need to make a change in the numbers -in reference to the state of the entity’s accounts-. Healthy numbers generate stability, certainty and bring you closer to achieving your sporting goals”, he stressed as a path in which is being built despite chaining two exercises with practically 7 million losses each. In this scenario, he also referred to an interest in breaking with sayings such as “Asturias or you work”, in reference to unemployment, the decline in the population and the lack of opportunities that lead many to leave the region. As soon as the shareholders meeting finished, Alejandro Irarragorri spoke to Mareo. There he had a chat with the footballers minutes before they started the road trip to Huesca. A game in which Abelardo’s team is at stake to break a streak of five games without winning.
