BarcelonaBarcelona will have, from next year, a new football club. And it’s not just any club. Internacional Barcelona, which will start from the lowest rung, the Catalan fourth, was born with a very clear idea: to reach the elite of Spanish football. It is the dream of a Chinese businessman, Xuandong Ren, who until 2021 was CEO of Birmingham City and vice-chairman of the Hong Kong-based company that runs the English club, Birmingham Sports Holding.
After closing that stage, he traveled to Spain to manage a club. First he studied the purchase of an Andalusian team from the League, and then he probed historic Catalans from the First Federation. The talks, however, did not bear fruit and he thought of founding a club from scratch with his own values in a strategic location: “Barcelona has the potential to host more football clubs in higher categories. I was very surprised that there were only two clubs in Primera, Barça and Espanyol, and that now only one remains. It’s sad, but real”, he explains to the ARA.
For Ren, London is a role model. “They have seven clubs in the Premier League and two in the Championship. They have built a great pool of clubs that allows the city to attract more talent. If a kid doesn’t get into Chelsea, he can try Arsenal, Tottenham, Fulham, West Ham, Crystal Palace or QPR,” he says. The bet on young people, in fact, will be one of the backbones of Inter Barcelona. “In Catalonia there are many talented young people, but many of them do not find enough opportunities because there is a very limited capacity in terms of their development in professional football”, reflects the businessman.
In Birmingham, in fact, one of his obsessions was to empower promising young people. One of the assignments he gave to the Catalan coach Pep Clotet was to give wings to Jude Bellingham, who broke out with the first team at just 16 years old. A few months later, Borussia Dortmund paid 30 million euros. This summer he signed for Real Madrid for 103 million. “If you give opportunities to young people, you can get positive surprises”, admits the manager, who tried to sign talents such as the parakeet Javi Puado.
They want to own a sports field and city
Inter Barcelona will play at Camp del Júpiter, in the district of Sant Martí, until 2025, but the wish of its owner is to achieve its own heritage. “At the end of 2022, we started talks with the municipal government of a city close to Barcelona to get some land and build our sports city there”, acknowledges Ren, who also longs for his own stadium. The challenge of achieving eight promotions is a difficult mission, but not impossible. In Europe there are precedents to look at. The German RB Leipzig, founded in 2009 in the fifth division, will compete in the Champions League next season. English Luton Town, who were in the fifth division in 2013, will play in the Premier League from September. “I am not saying that we will replicate what they have achieved, but we will try. It must be an aspiration for us to reach as high as possible”, he says.
The money, he assures, will not be a problem: “For now we will use our own resources and, if we need more in the future, we will look for partners”. Unlike other Chinese owners of European clubs, such as Chen Yansheng at Espanyol, Ren and his Venezuelan partner, Roberto Strauss, will be able to sidestep restrictions on investing in football because the money they will bring comes from companies established in Europe. A new club that aspires to become a global brand rooted in Barcelona.
2023-07-24 15:11:09
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