President of cash-strapped Valencia resigns

The president of Spanish first division side Valencia announced his resignation Thursday, admitting he had been unable to put in place a business plan that would ensure the club’s economic viability.

“I have come here to announce my irrevocable resignation as president of Valencia Football Club,” Vicente Soriano, who took office last July, said in a statement.

“Since the day I became president, I have been struggling to achieve economic and sporting viability for the club. Today, despite having an operation in progress, I have not fully succeeded.”

Valencia are in the midst of a financial crisis that is threatening their survival.

The two-time Champions League finalists temporarily suspended payments to players in February and stopped work on a new stadium amid massive debts.

They had hoped to sell land around its 55,000-seat Mestalla stadium to finance the building of a new 75,000-capacity ground with an estimated cost of 200 million euros.

But last year Spain entered a steep recession as the cheap credit which had fuelled a decade-long real estate boom dried up due to the global financial crisis, making it hard for Valencia to sell the land.

Soriano admitted that selling land “in the largest real estate crisis in history” is “not easy.”

Valencia, based in Spain’s third-largest city, won the Spanish league in 2002 and 2004. Among its star players are Spanish international striker David Villa, the Euro 2008 golden boot winner, and his international teammate David Silva.

But they finished last season in sixth place, five points from the fourth place that would have seen them qualify for the lucrative Champions League.

Spain is home to two of the world’s richest clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona, which benefit from generous sponsorship contracts and lucrative deals from television broadcast rights.

But many other clubs like Valencia are struggling to face up to soaring wages and transfer fees as revenues decline.