International Investment Heralds Bright Future for Marbella Football Club

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 30, 2007 – The new team brings a wealth of experience of international football at the highest level and excellent marketing knowledge. The hope is to improve the level of play, build the profile of the club and increase spectator numbers. Ian Radford, Wayne Elliott and Alfredo Guerisoli are all passionate about football and believe that with investment and strong management, UD Marbella can improve its standing in the league and bring together Marbella’s diverse international community.

Unión Deportiva Marbella was founded in 1997 by Mr. Antonio J. Pérez Ramos. The club started life in the Regional Preferente league and were promoted to the Spanish Third Division after a tremendous first season. Since then, the club has progressed even further and currently play in the 2ª Division ‘B’ (the third tier of Spanish Football). Despite the team’s place at the bottom of the league at the time of take over, the new owners have already seen results of their investment with two impressive away wins against Cartagena and Merida, much to the delight of the team’s loyal supporters.

New Blood
The improvement on the pitch has been caused by the group’s first change at the club, the instatement of high profile manager Oliverio ‘Oli’ Jesús Álvarez Gonzalez. Oli brings to the team over ten years of experience as a player for Spanish sides Real Oviedo, Cádiz CF and Real Betis and as part of the Spanish national team. Off the pitch, he has experience in the “Primera Liga” as a trainer for Cádiz. His background, personality and management skills make him a well-respected choice to improve the team performance and have already seen a marked difference in attitude and results.

Further confidence in the future of the team comes with the recent signing of an important new sponsor, Sanyres. This company replaces the previous sponsors and hope to help UD Marbella move forward into this exciting new stage. They have signed a deal with the club until January 2008 and unveiled the new team strip on
11 October 2007.

A Community of Fans
UD Marbella has a loyal base of Spanish fans, but is relatively unknown in the international community. Ian Radford is determined that the non-Spanish residents of Marbella also get behind the team. “Football is a very powerful sport to bring together communities,” says Radford. “We believe that the diverse international community of Marbella needs something to unite behind and that this football club could be a very positive influence. We will be publicising the club to the foreign residents like never before and hope that they will support us as we climb up the places in the division. The positive feeling and publicity that football can foster could help Marbella improve its reputation outside Spain and the matches will be a great day out for all the family.”

The new owners passionately believe in the potential of the club and have ambitious aims over the next few years, to make the club commercially viable and increase the number of fans attending the matches to 2,000 by the start of the new season in summer 2008. Through their experience, financial investment, better management and ambitious plans, they hope they can improve the team to such an extent that they move up into the second division ‘A’. This would really give the fans something to support and would improve the quality of the football taking place at the 9,000 capacity stadium.

Ian Radford hopes that the local and international press will also get behind the team and cover the matches and latest news. “This is a very exciting time for UD Marbella and we foresee many positive changes over the next few years. Publicity is crucial to our aims of creating a community club which appeals to all sections of the population in Marbella and we hope that we can rely on the support of the local press to achieve our aims.”