A young man from Zaragoza | Yes, you can live from petanque: 100,000 euros from Patatas Gómez for Jesús Escacho prove it

What has allowed Escacho to become completely professional? “This year I have gotten a sponsor from my land, Patatas Gómez, and thanks to that I live from petanque. Nobody has achieved it in our country”, he comments to EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, from the Prensa Ibérica group, with the same pride with which Eduardo Ramos, commercial director of Patatas Gómez, shares how the agreement came to fruition: “In our company we have a firm commitment to minority sports and Jesus represents our values ​​of camaraderie, involvement and honesty, besides being a Aragonese athlete“.

Patatas Gómez made it possible

This company of food industry has a sales volume that will exceed the 80,000 tons and what do you have 50 million billing. Data provided by Ramos, also transparent in the agreement he reached with Escacho after speaking on social networks with the athlete, whom he knew because he was from his own neighborhood and with whom he personally negotiated.

“In January we signed the most important sponsorship agreement in the history of petanque, for which we will invest 100,000 euros in the next four years so that Jesús can continue in the elite and expanding his enormous record, where there are Spanish, European and world championships that position him in the ‘top 5’ of the professionals of the petanque“, explains the commercial director.

He is part of the generation of a family business that is also the main sponsor of the Gomez Sala Potatoes 2012, a futsal team with a 10-team youth system. “If it weren’t for our company, today it would be very difficult for Jesús to combine his work and professional life,” insists Ramos, something that Escacho corroborates. The world champion recalls that this discipline is “expensive, because some good balls are worth between 120 and 300 euros”, although he has Obut as a technical sponsor.

Petanque is played on TV

Another important firm, Toro, has partnered with Sara Díaz, who like Escacho was proclaimed world champion in Denmark last year. The Canary Islander was crowned in doubles (two players) together with Aure Blázquez while the Aragonese reigned in the absolute individual category. Both add trips to the cost book of the season. Díaz joins engineering to take days off at the transport company in Bilbao where he works.

There are differences between men and women when it comes to the awards and remuneration they receive. It happens in most sports and worsens in minorities. “Because I am a champion, I have taken it for a photo that I can take with my cell phone, a stuffed animal, a t-shirt or a check for 100 euros. The federations, in this sense, should think more about the players, especially with regard to their motivation”, defends Díaz in the run-up to the Madrid International Openplayed last weekend and broadcast by LaLigaSports TV, OTT platform from which the LEB league (ball basket), Asobal (handball) or LNFS (living room football) is broadcast.

“It is the second discipline with the most follow-up,” explains Antonio Pérez Arcas, president of the Petanque Federation. Faced with the demand of some athletes so that the proceeds from this agreement redound more to them, he alludes to the effort of the entity to organize the different national and international tournaments that Spain has hosted. “The license is worth 40 euros, when in other sports it does not go below 200”insists.

“It is not a sport for old people”

When asked about the differences in prizes between men and women, Arcas alludes to a structural issue. “In the committees, we have equality, but since there are fewer licenses for women, the organizers also earn less from registrations. There cannot be the same prizes, because there are not the same teams. When they match up, I’m sure they’ll match up, ”he envisions, insisting on the uniqueness of Escacho, to whom a sponsor like Patatas Gómez allows him to live from petanque.

Something that does happen to a greater extent in France, the origin of this sport, which has as its greatest exponent Dylan Rocher. “He can earn 100,000 euros a year or more”says Escacho. But even the multiple French world champion, who was nicknamed the ‘Zidane of the bowling alleys’, made his successes compatible with his work in the town hall of Draguignan, in the south of France, because on his agenda there are championships in Thailand, New York or French overseas territories that require a large investment.

To this we must add the enormous wear and tear that petanque implies. “It is not a sport for old people, it is a sport that causes great mental exhaustion. You need extreme concentration on the shots, on knowing how many balls are left, to analyze the weather conditions (most of the tournaments are open)”, explains Sara Díaz, who has had to resort to a psychologist to cope with the competitions .

hundreds of hours

“You are on your feet for many hours. You have to demonstrate everything in just a day and a half. If you lose a game, you’re out. And the next day the alarm goes off at 7 in the morning to go to work”, he reflects. Both Escacho and Díaz have partners who have also practiced petanque. “He tells me: ‘you are going to saturate yourself, relax, forget… .’. He is my greatest support, together with my family”, says the champion. “If I hadn’t been with a ‘petanquera’, surely he would have left me”, emphasizes the professional. Both accumulate hundreds of kilometers and hours of training.

“That four older people are throwing balls in the park is not petanque in itself. That is throwing balls forward, but petanque is much more,” insists Escacho, for whom the World Cup “was a fairly tough championship, where we got up at 6 in the morning and we would arrive at 12 at night. To all this we must add that I was not used to the food that they gave us and I practically did not eat anything”.

Despite the obstacles, he surpassed all the opponents with solvency. What he did not know is that the best was yet to come with the sponsorship of Patatas Gómez, which denied the viral “to achieve something that no one in Spain has ever achieved.”