They compare it to the biblical story of David facing Goliath, but the story of Unionistas de Salamanca CF clashing against FC Barcelona goes much further than that. Beyond a result. Beyond a defeat. And more here too, because it requires talking about a debate that, far from being biblical, is current and urgent: the absolute commercialization of football. It is that although the culé club is proud of not being a Sports Joint Stock Company (SAD) in the Spanish first division, What the Unionists propose goes even one step further: they establish themselves as a democratic, popular and members’ club that champions its recent history to value social ties, question the market and shield its identity against the privatizing hand of football.
That of the Salamanca Unionists is a love story. A Phoenix reborn from the ashes and learning to fly again, little by little, but with a steady flutter. Its origin marked its identity with fire: the rival that this Thursday fell 3-1 at home against Barcelona (it won 1-0 until the culés turned it around) was born from the disappearance of the Salamanca Sports Union (UDS), club to which Unionistas pay tribute with their existence and which became extinct with ninety years of history 21 seasons after becoming a SAD. Born in 1923, it was dissolved in 2013 due to economic and financial problems that made its rescue impossible. That year 2013, which meant its extinction, was redefined by a group of fans, who created Unionistas de Salamanca FC to keep the flame of that football passion alive.
The disappearance of that institution that knew how to shelter their football dreams for nine decades – with twelve seasons in First Division and a seventh place in 1974/75 – did not happen in vain for the fans who created Unionistas. Pain combined with reason forged their new identity: they did not want to go back to being a SAD that would end up disappearing. “We loved the UD so much that we had to do it differently,” Roberto Pescador, current president of Unionistas, recently revealed to the Catalan newspaper. Sport. “We didn’t want it to happen again and we shielded it so that it did,” said the leader, and then explained his reasons: “The reality, as has been demonstrated throughout history, is that sports corporations do not fix the problem that clubs have with money, but rather they often aggravate it. In such a way that it is much simpler to let the entity fall and liquidate it. The only thing the SAD have done is take football away from the fans.”
This new identity of Unionistas, tied to that traumatic origin and the same passion as always, “is governed by the criteria of popular, transparent and democratic football,” according to what can be read on the club’s website. There are two keys to its institutional DNA: zero debt and the democratic spirit.
Regarding the first point, the Unionistas explain on their website that it is an absolutely solid club from an economic point of view: “Its future is totally guaranteed regardless of the category in which it plays, since since its creation there has been a commitment zero debt on the part of the entity. In fact, The club has ended every season with a surplus in its accounts because it carries out responsible management to avoid making the same mistakes that led to the disappearance of the UDS.”. The ambition of the institution, always aligned with its identity, is supported financially thanks to two dimensions of fundraising that are pillars: members and sponsors, although they also add other secondary income to the coffers, such as the sale of merchandising and tickets, the TV or public subsidies. The club’s accounts, after all, are presented in detail at the assemblies and must be approved by the members, giving meaning to the principle of transparency that Unionistas upholds.
The second pillar is simple and is the essence of the club: “One partner, one vote”. In this club the members are its owners, something that in Argentina may seem customary and normal but in Europe it is the exception in a world of sports corporations that belong to eccentric millionaires. They are the ones who make the decisions in the club, through annual and extraordinary assemblies that they can demand and in which they can participate or by being part of the leadership and work bodies.: The Board, currently made up of 10 people, relies daily on the Working Group, made up of 53 members and open to any partner who wants to collaborate. Both instances are characterized by a total absence of profit motive: their work is altruistic and, as volunteers, they do not receive any type of remuneration for the actions they carry out in favor of the club.
Transparency is another of the club’s axes and its website, from which it is possible and easy to obtain information about the institution, is just further proof of this. A single erroneous fact appears these days in the information found there and it has to do with a football reality that was ahead of numbers and data: After eliminating Villarreal on penalties, in the round of 32 of the Copa del Rey, there are not only “more than 3,000” members of the club but they almost reach 5,000, after the enthusiasm that the pass generated in the region to the round of 16, the crossing with Barcelona and the fervor to associate to get a place in the historic match. According to the EFE agency, there are 4,895 members that the club now registers, each owner of a little piece of Unionists and of the decision-making around a club that chooses and acts democratically and not from a single commanding voice. . Thus, in addition to choosing the anthem, the clothing or the emblem, it is also the group of members that has emphatically rejected, for example, advertising sponsorship by the controversial betting houses, a decision that goes against the grain of the betting market. football (Boca and River, for example, display the names of gambling companies on the chest of their shirts).
If the life of the club is short, its sporting ambition does not seem to be. There was a reason why the move to the quarter-finals came to be played against none other than Barcelona. So far in its history, it went from playing in the Salamanca provincial league, the lowest possible level of competition, to remaining a few points away from playing the playoff for promotion to the Second Division in the last two seasons. At the moment and after the four promotions achieved, the club plays in the Spanish third category, where the Unión Deportiva Salamanca disappeared. He plays as he lives and, for two years, it makes him happier, because then the Spanish legislation that had been in effect since the ’90s changed and that forced clubs to become SAD to play in the first two categories of soccer in that country. Unionistas will continue to dream and know that he will be able to do it his way. As the Latin motto on its shield says. Ad astra per aspera: “To the stars, by the most difficult path.”
