One of the great revelations of the season in LaLiga is Girona FC. It was founded in 1930 and has only four seasons in the First Division. However, this 2023/24 campaign counts most of its matches as victories, fighting and defending, depending on each matchday, the lead in the head-to-head classification against Real Madrid.
How can Girona FC be the leader of LaLiga ahead of Barcelona FC or Atlético de Madrid? Who is the owner of Girona FC?
To answer this and several more questions we would have to travel to 2017. In that season the club was still active in Second Division B fighting to save itself from bankruptcy. This is how the club came into the hands of City Football Grup, owner of Manchester City, and Pere Guardiola, brother of Pep Guardiola. Both parties with the same percentage: 44.3%. His goal: to professionalize the club at the highest level.
City Group is an entity, owned by Abu Dhabi United Group, a private company of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, which controls the management of a total of 12 other football clubs spread around the world. Manchester City being its flagship and now Girona its second best ambassador.
In Europe, Breda, Palermo, Lommel and Troyes are also under its control. In other countries: New York City, Montevideo, Bahia, Yokohama Marinos, Sichuan Jiuniu and Mumbai City.
For this season the team has a budget of 59 million, one of the lowest in the category
Currently, the capital of the Catalan entity is distributed as follows: 47% City Group (47%), the Bolivian businessman Marcelo Claure (35%) and Pere Guardiola (16%). The president of Girona FC is the former footballer Delfí Geli.
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In relation to the management and control formats of the entities, the City Group controls the sponsors and global exploitation agreements of the different clubs. As an example, they all have an agreement with the Puma brand.
On a sporting level, Girona FC, which is already popularly known as Manchester City’s subsidiary in Spain, this year only has two players in its squad on loan from the English club, Yan Couto and Savinho. However, all City Group squads play the same game system and the exchange of Big Data between teams and sports directors is common with the aim of perfecting their formula in the rest of the entities.
One of the success stories, for example, was that of the player Taty Castellanos. He stood out as the best on the Montevideo team and that is why he was able to sign for New York City before playing on loan at Girona. Today he is a Lazio player after being transferred for 15 million euros.
For the coming years, Girona FC expects to invest more than 25 million in its facilities, which include improvements to the Montilivi stadium and its sports city.