Saving a Football Club: First Steps

After a long fight on the part of neighbors and leaders of the entity, The Buenos Aires Legislature yesterday approved in the first reading the “historical restitution” of the Spanish Sports and Cultural Social Club of the Argentine Republic.

In what was the first ordinary session of the year, after the paralysis of the legislative body the entire first semester of 2025, among more than 250 projects debated the deputies gave green light to the initiative that seeks Deliver to said institution the permission to use the property in the south of the city in a precarious way for the term of one hundred years.

The text in question He was voted unanimously by all the spaces that make up the legislatureso the author of the project and public trusted legislator (CP) María Sol Méndez could not hide her emotion. “I appreciate the accompaniment of the whole body in this first reading, in this first step for the rebirth of the Spanish Sports Club. It is a club founded by migrants, it is part of the community and a part of Spain in Argentina,” he said.

“This law comes to repair damage that the club had when losing its hectares, being the only club in the history of football and Argentina in losing its entire property. It seems to me that having obtained the 54 votes of this legislature is essential to be reborn as an institution. As a partner, fan and member of the Spanish family I thank you for this accompaniment,” said Méndez.

The property in question It is located at the intersection of Santiago de Compostela, Asturias and Castañares avenues, one of the most relegated areas of the capital districtknown as Bajo Flores, although formally is the neighborhood of Parque Avellaneda, so its reactivation arouses interest among the neighbors. The club has been there for seven years in informality, since the bailment he had won in 2018.

The truth is that, despite this initial approval, the initiative still has a long way to go: first, must go through a public audience in which neighbors, leaders and officials will present their ideas regarding it; Then, the file will return to the legislative commissions, where the deputies will continue to evaluate it to finally return to the session to get your definitive sanction.

In dialogue with La Nacion, the second vice president of the Spanish Sports and Cultural Social Club, Daniel Iglesias López, said yesterday: “Justice began to be done. This is not a gift, it is to start repairing very serious damage that they have done, not only to the institution, not only to the very important community, but to the neighborhood, to the environment. The social function that the Spanish Sports Club of Buenos Aires was fulfilled was not fulfilled when we stopped acting. ”

At the same time, he stressed: “Only the first step, because there is not yet the law, it is the first reading. The law has to leave before December 10, before the replacement of this legislature. And well, we begin to give us tools to work, to be able to project, to be able to sit at a table, in conditions of equality, in a negotiation.”

The Spanish Sports Club was founded on October 12, 1956 by a group of Spaniards With the aim of grouping them under a football entity and, in their origins, he knew how to have a farm of 16 hectares. This was how it became a model institution with more than 25,000 members in the 80s, with a rich social and cultural life. In February 1981, the Spain Stadium was inaugurated for 18,000 spectators who, in 1996, extended its capacity to 35,000. The set was 14 consecutive years in the First Division.

Then, for controversial leadership decisions From the end of the 90s and early 2000s, the club contracted economic debts and, thus, lost the property of the Sports City, which was closed in July 2003 for a period of four years.

In those years, Spanish moved its headquarters to a small club just 150 meters from there and never left the neighborhood, until In 2007 the Buenos Aires government through the Buenos Aires Sur Corporation returned the land considering that it was important to have an open club in operation in that area.

However, political changes made new authorities surprisingly imposed new conditions: They established in nine hectares of the property the school of the then Metropolitan Police and left the club only seven hectares. A bailment was then signed for that portion of the land with a duration of only ten years, which – as it was said – won in 2018. Thus, The Spanish Sports Club has been in informality for seven years. Hence the concern and urgency to be given the definitive sanction to the project.