C.F Reus (Spain)
Club de Futbol
Reus Deportiu, S.A.D or just CF Reus for short as they were known, were founded
on the 23 November 1909, and were based in the Catalonia region of Spain. They
played their home matches at the Estadio Municipal, which has a capacity of
4,700. The football club were in fact a product of the collapse of the sports
organisation, Reus Sport Club. But, by September29th, 1917, they were back to
being a part of a multi sports organization, when they merged with Club
Velocipedista and SC Olympia. But once again, the football side went solo and
in 1951, with CF Reus Deportiu dedicating itself to just football, while Reus
Deportiu stuck to other sports that were involved in the organisation.
It was a club
that spent most of it’s life playing in the lower leagues of Spanish football,
with the highest league it played in being the Segunda Division B, Spanish
footballs second tier. The club didn’t make much of an impression until the
1940’s when it entered the fourth ier of Spanish football, were it finished 2nd
in Group 1 in the 1940-41 season. The following season the finished 5th
in their group while the 1942-43 season saw the club finish 3rd. The
1943-44 season saw the club compete in the Third tier for the first time, or
the Tercera Division as it was called. They were placed in Group IV, with nine
other clubs. They finished a respectable 3rd, winning nine, drawing
four a losing nine that season, finishing four points behind the group winners,
Mallorca. The 1944-45 season was a bit of a bizarre one for CF Reus, who
competed in Group V this time around. The group consisted of ten teams and Reus
finished 6th, with the top two teams going through to the championship
play-off. They were Gimnastic de Tarragona and Levente in that group, but for
the rest, it was a relegation play-off. Yes, all the other eight teams were
subjected to having to take part in a relegation play-off. Even poor old
Girona, who finished third, had to face the threat of relegation. And so, Reus
had to play in another group, but avoided relegation, finishing 6th
once again. It has to be noted, the whole relegation, promotion play-off
structure back then was very confusing and a little bit bizarre. When looking
into a bit more, I found that it wasn’t really down to results most of the
time. Instead, clubs would opt out of going up, or decide to get relegated
based on financial or political reasons.
Unsurprisingly,
the 1945-46 season was given a new format, which, albeit still confusing
enough, made more sense than the previous format. Keep up with me here. The new
format saw the division have 100 clubs compete in ten geographical groups. The
top three in each group would progress to the second phase. That meant 30 clubs
would go to Phase Two, which would comprise of five groups of six. The winners
of each of those groups would progress to the final phase, which was another
group competition. The two clubs of the final phase group would gain promotion
to the Segunda Division, while the club that finished third would have to face
the club that finished 12th in the Spanish Segunda that year, in a
Promotion/Relegation play-off. Reus were placed in Group 5 in the First phase,
or the regular season as it was called and gained qualification to the second
phase by virtue of goal difference. They had finished 3rd, behind
Badalona and Jupiter, and finished just above Tortosa by only seven goals.
And so, into
Group 3 they went for the Second Phase of the season. But that was to be the
end of their progression as they could only manage to finish 3rd in
the group, four points behind the winners, Arenas Zaragoza. That year saw
Malaga, Levente and Baracaldo promoted to the Segunda Division.
If you thought
that format was hard to get through, with 100 clubs vying for promotion, well,
the Spanish FA didn’t think so. They added another twenty clubs to the
equation, and another two geographical locations into the mix. So now, 120
clubs competed in twelve different groups of ten. This time, only the top two
teams progressed, leaving 24 teams to compete in the second phase. Three groups
of eight clubs were made, with each club having to play each home and away. The
winners and runners-up of each of the three groups progressed to the Final
phase. Once again, each team played each other twice, home and away, with the
top two gaining promotion to the Segunda Division, while third place had to
play a promotion/relegation play-off against the team that came 12th
in the Segunda Division that year. Reus didn’t have to worry about much of that
as they finished 9th in their First Phase group, although, finishing
9th out of a team group may sound bad, they did only finish six
points behind second placed Jupiter.
The 1947-48
season was a mixed one for the club. Once again, the format was changed, but
this time the number of clubs was reduced to 112 instead of the previous 120
that competed. Eight geographical groups were formed with fourteen clubs in
each group. However, only the champions of each group would progress to the Fase
Intermedia (Second Phase) in which they would compete in two groups of four.
The winners and runners-up of these two groups would progress to the Final
Phase or the Fase-Final were the top two of the four clubs would gain promotion
to the Segunda League. Reus were placed in Group 5 but they struggled. They
were relegated to the 4th tier once again, losing out on a
relegation play-off spot by goal difference. In fact, it was so close that the
two clubs above them, who both occupied the relegation play-off spots, only
edged Reus out by goal difference. Sans, by six goals and Espana Industrial by
10 goals. However, as I said, it was a mixed bag for the club that year, and
they did go on a bit of a cup run, reaching the fourth round. They were knocked
out by fellow Catalonian club, Unio Esportiva Lleida, a club who themselves
have only dissolved back in 2011.
It only took
the club a year to come back up to the Tercera Division and they once again
competed at that level in the 1949-50 season. By now, there were only 90 clubs
competing to get into the Segunda Division, and Reus were one of them. Under
the name Reus Deportivo now, they finished 12th in Group 3, meaning
they neither progressed to the next round, nor did they get relegated. You may
think that was a waste of a year? Well, Reus would have taking it the following
year, because in the 1950-51 season, they found themselves relegated once again,
finishing rock bottom of Group III, winning just eight games, drawing nine and
losing twenty-one. They had conceded a whopping amount of goals in the total of
96, which tells you were the problems lay for them.
It took two
years for them to bounce back and that’s what they did after finishing top of
their group in Tier Four of the Spanish footballing pyramid. The 1953-54 season
saw the club finish 13th in the first phase of the league format and
therefore not progress to the latter stages. This was the theme of how Reus’s
life as a football would be up until the 1957-58 season, when disaster struck
again and the club were once again relegated. A futher two seasons in the 4th
tier occurred before they finally got back up to the third tier again. This
time, they would make their stay a little bit ore permanent. It would be a
decade of mid table finishes and nothing spectacular happening at all for the
Catalonian club. Some may say it was good to finally be stable, other would say
it was boring and predictable.
But as
predictable things go, Reus were just that and in the 1969-70 season they
finally saw themselves getting relegated once again, down to the fourth tier
and there was no immediate bounce back either. The club spent six seasons down
in the fourth tier, until the 1975-76 season, when they finally gained
promotion. But they were almost immediately relegated once more when they
finished 19th in Group 4, meaning they had to play in a relegation
playoff. In their two legged tie with CD Pena Azagresa, the club lost 4-2 in
the first leg away from home. A big performance was needed in the second leg in
front of their home fans and that is what they gave them, winning 4-1 and 6-5
on aggregate to secure their third tier status once again.
The club
remained competitive in the years that followed, finishing in the top of the
table, but it was the 1980-81 season that saw the club achieve what it may not
have thought possible a few season beforehand. Placed in Group V, Reus topped
the league table, winning twenty-two games, drawing nine and losing just seven.
They won the league by one point, finishing ahead of Figueres and just two
points ahead of third place Badalona. It meant they progressed to the second
phase, a two-legged knockout match against Real Aranjuez, a club based in
Madrid. The Catalonian side easily beat their opponents from the capital,
winning 1-0 in the first leg and 2-0 in the second to secure a 3-0 aggregate
win. It set up a final round match against Arosa. The winner would secure
promotion to the Second Division. Arosa won the first leg 1-0, but Reus were
confident they could overturn it in the second leg and that is exactly what
they did, winning the match 3-0 and gaining promotion with a 3-1 aggregate win.
It was the first time the club would be competing in the Segunda Division, and
the highest they had ever been in terms of league status. The next few years
would be fun for the club nicknamed ‘La avellana mecanica’, which in English
translates to The Clockwork Hazelnut.
The season was
1981-82 and CF Reus Deportivo had finally arrived in the Segunda. They were
placed in Group II, alongside nineteen other clubs. The main objective for the
club in their first season at this level was to avoid relegation straight away,
and they accomplished that by finishing 14th, winning eleven games,
drawing thirteen and losing fourteen. However, the 1982-83 season turned out to
be a disaster. Placed in Group I this time, alongside the other Northern clubs,
Reus finished 20th, rock bottom of the league, winning just five
games all season, drawing seven and losing twenty-six. It meant they were back
in the Third division once again. And that’s where they remained until the
1984-85 season when they plummeted even further down the ladder, being
relegated after finishing 19th out of 20 clubs in Group V. And it
wasn’t even a close call, with the club finishing twelve poinrs behind the side
in 17th, Mollerussa.
The set back
meant the were relegated to their regional league for the 1985-86 season, but
they won that with ease, and took their place back in the Spanish Third
Division. But five seasons later, after relative mediocrity, they were
relegated once again in 1990-91. But once again, in the Catalonian regional
league, they gained promotion straight away, finishing second.
After a 9th
placed finish in the 1992-93 season and a 13th finish in the 1993-94
season, the club were relegated again, finishing bottom of their group once
again. This time, they would have to wait a few seasons before getting
promotion. They played three seasons in the Catalonian regional league before
coming second in the 1997-98 season and gaining promotion back to the third level.
And four seasons later the club gained promotion to the Segunda Division once
again. In the 2001-02 season they finished third in their group, gaining
qualification to the promotion play-offs, and through that eventually gained
promotion to the Segunda Division B. But that stay was short lived and they
finished 18th out of twenty clubs, finishing just three points
adrift of safety.
The next season
saw the club qualify for the promotion play-offs but unlike their previous
success in the play-off’s they failed to gain promotion. Instead, they had to
wait the following year to do that, after finishing fourth in Group Vand just
about qualifying for the play-offs, by a point ahead of CF Peralada, the club
navigated it’s way through the knock-out stages to once again gain promotion. But
in true Reus style, they immediately got relegated that season, finishing 17th
, winning just nine games all season.
Another five
seasons followed in the Tercera Division, until another promotion (Ive lost
count how many in their history by this stage) was gained. You would be
forgiven to think that this promotion would end in the same way as previous
ones, with club almost immediately getting relegated again. But no, this time
the club held their own for five seasons before the unthinkable happened in the
2015-16 season. The club won their group, Group 3, and qualified for the group
championship play-offs. It was a season that was helped by the goal scoring
exploits of Edgar Hernandez, who finished fourth in the goalscoring charts,
only behind Villareal trio, Fran Sol (16 goals), Carlos Martinez (15 goals) and
Carlitos Lopez (13 goals). One would think that having the three top goal
scorers in your team would win you the league, but they would have to settle
for second place, one point behind CF Reus.
The group
championship play-offs took place, with four clubs competing to gain promotion.
It was as simple knock-out situation. The four teams would be drawn against
each-other in a semi-final. The winners of each semi-final would then progress
to the final but would have the comfort in knowing that both finalists would be
promoted regardless of the result. The final was merely a formality as to who
would be crowned the Segunda B Division champion. CF Reus were drawn against
Racing Santander. The first leg was played away from home at the Sardinero, in
front of a crowd of 17,000. The home crowd were silenced early on, however,
when Reus took the lead in the 11th minute thanks to Vitor Silva.
Their lead was doubled in the 29th minute by their centre back,
Dinis Almeida. Not content on their 2-0 lead, the visitors made it three, when
David Haro slotted home in the 58th minute, all but promoting Reus
to the second tier of Spanish football for the first time in their history. The,
of course, had to complete the second leg of the semi-final tie against Racing
Santander and they did so by winning the game 1-0, thanks to an early 5th
minute goal from David Haro. The final would be a two legged affair, and their
opponents were UCAM Murcia, who had just knocked out Real Madrid Castilla. Both
clubs seemed to be happy enough in the knowledge tht they would both be going
up and yu would think that would make for an exciting, open game of football,
with neither side having anything to lose. Not so, as both the first leg and
second legs ended in 0-0 draws. It took a penalty shoot-out to decide the
champion of the Segunda Division B. In the end, the trophy went to UCAM Murcia,
as they won the penalty shoot-out 5-3. David Haro was the unfortunate player to
have missed his penalty.
That year also
saw the club reach the round of 32 in the Copa del Rey. After beating Asco’s, Arandina
and Lleida Esportiu in the early rounds, they arrived at the round of 32, only
to be knocked out by the mighty Atletico Madrid. Despite taking the lead in the
first leg, through Carbia’s 30th minute goal, Atletico Madrid hit
back with goals from Vietto (36th min) and Saul (63rd
min). The second leg was a close affair, but was won 1-0 by Atletico Madrid,
1-0, thanks to Thomas Partey’s goal in the 53rd minute. It was the furthest
the club would ever get in the competition.
And so Reus
took their place in the 2016-17 Segunda Division, playing against some of
Spanish footballs biggest clubs. But it did not phase them, as they finished a
respectable 11th out of the 22 clubs that competed in the league.
Levante and Girona gained automatic promotion that year, while UCAM Murcia, the
team that gained promotion with Reus the previous year, saw themselves
relegated, although it must be said, narrowly, by two points. However, while
things were looking good on the field, the situation off the field was starting
to worry the Reus fans.
They
participated in the 2017-18 season, finishing a respectable 14th
this time, but they were starting to build up a huge financial debt at this
stage. Playing in the higher leagues and trying to compete with some of Spain’s
bigger clubs was becoming too much for the small Catalonian club, and it soon
became apparent that they would no longer be able to compete at that level
unless a major investment was injected into the club.
They started
off the 2018-19 season as planned, but the team were struggling on the field.
They had only won five times in the first half of the season, and things were
about to get even worse for the club. On January 18th 2019, one day
before the second half of the season was about to start, the LFP informed CF
Reus that they were to be expelled from the league due to their failure to pay
their players. The club were effectively relegated and finished bottom of the
league, having to forfeit the rest of their fixtures and thus giving everyone a
1-0 walk over. They weren’t just relegated to the Segunda Division B, but even
further down, to the regional league back in Catalonia. The club had been
included in the Segunda Division B, but were expelled when they still had not
paid their players wages. Subsequently, the club was also excluded from playing
in the regional leagues as well, until they had paid their debt. But they were
unable to do so, and therefore were left without a league to play in. However,
in October 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ordered that the club be
reinstated to the Segunda Division, however this never materialised and Reus
were liquidated a year later, on October 20th 2020, with the clubs owners
failing to present a plan to pay off a debt that was now estimated to be around
9 million euros.
And so, the
club CF Reus, in its original form ceased to exist. I spoke with a man who has
written plenty of articles about the club, especially around the time of their
demise, who is also the lead Spanish football writer for OverTheBar.net. Many
people pointed me in the direction of Paul McGarraghy when I asked who the best
person to speak to was in regards CF Reus, and so I asked him some questions
about the club and about the stte of Spanish football in general. Here is what
he had to say.
Hi Paul, first of all, thank you for taking the
time to answer my questions. CF Reus, the club I have written about. An
interesting club to say the least. I know you have written about them in the
past. Can you tell me what gained your interest in them at the time?
Paul: Hi Philip, thanks for getting in touch.
So, CF Reus were a club I had sort of had on my radar for a while, as I’ve
always had a keen interest in Spanish football and Reus reached the Segunda
Division (second tier) arguably on the back of money put into the club by Joan
Oliver and Joan Laporta - two names Barcelona fans will know. However, in late
2018 I had heard rumours that the club had not been as profitable as the owners
wanted and there were staff becoming concerned about not being paid. So I
started keeping an eye on developments and trying to make sense of the
information that was coming out of the small town - to me, as someone who lives
just a few miles from Bury Football Club in England, there seemed to be a
couple of similarities between what was happening under Stewart Day at Gigg
Lane before he sold to Steve Dale, and what was happening at Reus.
At the time
there was next to no coverage on the situation in English and considering this
was a town with a large airport that so many English speakers would fly
to/through on their way to Salou or Portaventura (Universal Studios
Mediteranea, as it was once called) it seemed odd that nobody was picking up on
the story, so I picked it up myself. The club was given a three-year ban from
football and a €250k fine - for any club to receive such a harsh punishment was
pretty much unheard of, let alone the damage that it would do to a club of
Reus’ stature. I did some digging and found out what information I could to put
out the story in the first article: (Paul sends me a link to that first
article, an interesting read titled: CF Reus & How the Spanish League
Killed a Football Club, which can be found on the Over The Bar Football site).
After the first
article went out there were further developments surrounding the club with
demonstrations from staff and supporters, but again there wasn’t much coverage
been provided other than the local newspaper, seemingly because the people
involved - Javier Tebas, Joan Oliver and Joan Laporta - didn’t want it to be
broadcast to a wider audience. But I could see this was a big story that really
deserved more coverage so after some much digging I was able to put out a
second and then a third article. The articles pretty much speak for themselves
and with hindsight it’s pretty clear that the information I was being given was
even more accurate than I perhaps appreciated at the time. I think the fact
that I was the only English-speaking person covering it made people want to
volunteer info to me presumably because they thought it would bring the
situation a bigger audience, and I found quite a number of Reus fans following
me on social media and getting in touch. (Paul sends me a second and third
article, follow ups from the the first on the story and demise of CF Reus)
After the third
article took off the club’s new owner, Clifton Onolfo got in touch with me and
we had a number of chats and he agreed to an interview to tell his side of the
story. I should point out that he is the brother of Curt Onalfo the former
player and now coach and was Assistant Coach to Bruce Arena at New England Revs
when they set their record a year or two ago. Clifton is an interesting guy and
had previously owned a club in Connecticut in the 1990s, he and his brother and
fellow Real Estate Tycoon Russell Platt had been looking to buy a club - there
were a number of clubs in Europe that they looked at, but I’m unable to say
more about this - other than what’s in the articles - as I’d given Clifton my
word on confidentiality. They heard Reus was on the market and were given the
opportunity to buy it from Laporta and Oliver - again, the articles I’ve
published and the interviews with Mr Onolfo on OTBFootball.net (Over The Bar) cover this
accurately, so I’d refer you to the links provided for the details.
Essentially, the full details of the club’s financial situation were not
disclosed to the new owners and Javier Tebas was pressuring the two parties to
come to a deal because he was threatening to expel the club from La Liga. The
deal was concluded and afterwards the US owners found themselves being given a
demand for payment from La Liga for money the previous owners hadn’t fulfilled
- this is in the articles and the emails included on OTB. As I described in the
articles and as Mr Onolfo explains in the interview, Tebas went ahead and
expelled the club anyway and things got messy - La Liga owned the club a
significant amount - we’re taking millions in TV money, but were claiming the
club had debts of between €8 and €9 million - if La Liga had offset the TV
money vs the debt and allowed the US owners more time to have their lawyers and
accountants due more investigating then I think it would have played out
differently. (Paul has sent me the links to the interviews with Mr Onolfo,
once again they can be found on the Over The Bar Website)
They spent a lot of time in the lower leagues of
Spain, never making it to the topflight. Do you think, with more of an
investment, they could have made that step up or is that just me being naive?
Paul: I think the intention from the various owners
was to establish the club within the Segunda Division for the medium term and
consolidate that position, build up the business model and improve
infrastructure in that time, with a long term ambition of reaching the
topflight. In terms of the size and location of the club, I’d say that the
second tier was a good position for the club to be in and perhaps their
ceiling. It’s very close to Barcelona - where you’ve obviously for FC Barcelona
and Espanyol who are going to suck up the majority of fans in the region, plus
Girona (owned by the City Football Group) is not far away so there’s a limit to
growth. However, one of the things that made Reus appealing and worked in its
favour is - as mentioned above - that the city is one that tourists and
holidaymakers pass through, so there was the opportunity to pick up some extra
money from a growth point of view.
I read an article about their demise as being
described as 'The club the Spanish FA killed'. Is that the truth? Or is that
pushing the blame somewhere else?
Paul: Yeah, I’d say that on
balance La Liga share a large portion of the blame - I think the you’re
referring to my article which is similarly titled - chosen by the editor - but
I stand by it, in fact the more I learnt the more more I was satisfied that I
had called it correctly. La Liga, in particular Javier Tebas, should take a lot
of the blame, but from what I’ve seen and heard, I think Joan Oliver and Joan
Laporta are the chief culprits - the main villains of the story.
Quite a few clubs in Spain could have featured in
my book. There was no shortage of contenders. What do you think is the main
reason for so many football clubs becoming defunct?
Paul: In the past there has been a relatively poor
and, it has to be said, politically motivated financial environment in Spanish
football driven from the top down by powerful men in suits, with efforts made
to appease certain clubs and stakeholders rather than having tried to build
something sustainable. There has been some reform as we’re seeing with the La
Liga “computer says no” model currently in place with hampered Barcelona from
registering players this year, but there’s still a long way to go and there’s
too much ‘political’ weight behind certain clubs which means the smaller clubs
are at risk. There’s also too much of an imbalance between the coverage the top
clubs receive and what the smaller clubs do and this all feeds into attention
from fans (which are seen by clubs nowadays primarily as consumers) and from
scrutiny too. It’s also due to the fact that there’s historically been a huge
gulf between the way TV rights were shared in Spain, but the new economic
controls should improve that, but the legacy issues are still taking their toll
on clubs.
If you could pick another Spanish club that would
feature in this book who would it be and why? (Remember they have to be
dissolved or merged with someone else)
Paul: I’d
probably say SD Compostela. They were essentially liquidated and reformed twice
- first in 1962 and again in 2004.
I watch Spanish football, its one of the most
popular leagues in the world. But there does seem to be a big gap between those
clubs with money and those who are working on a much smaller budget. This
usually means that some clubs may suffer the same fate as CF Reus did. Is there
anything that can be done or is being done in Spanish football to stop this
happening and maybe closing the gap? Or again, am I being quite naive in my
thinking?
Paul: La Liga have a made an
effort in the last few years to change their economic controls and share out
the TV rights, but it is still far from good enough in my opinion. There are
also the financial controls in terms of player registrations which we’ve seen
hamper Barcelona and Real Betis this summer, which is an attempt to stop clubs
struggling financially, but it’s not the best model and as this summer has
shown, it still needs work. The TV rights is a big one though and I am not
confident that the CVC deal La Liga proposed is right way of going about it,
but it is very hard for the league to compete with the Premier League in terms
of demanding money from sponsors and TV companies - the departures of Messi and
Ronaldo have definitely played a part in this, but it would be ignorant and
inaccurate to attribute issues to those two players. Atletico Madrid
challenging the big two has helped, but La Liga need to work on improving their
marketing as a whole. It’s the second (almost the first, in my opinion) best
league in the world to watch and has so many storylines and subplots as well as
some of the most interesting and unique clubs in the world and yet it really is
not marketed very well at all.
Who is your favourite Spanish player of time and
who in your opinion is the best Spanish player of all time? It can be the same
player.
Paul: My favourite Spanish
player of all time is David Silva. I had the privilege of watching week in and
week out for ten years whilst he was at Manchester City (I’m a season ticket
holder and travelled all over Europe watching the Blues). He’s a magician. However,
it’s hard for me to really say who is the best Spanish player of all time, as
the country is spoiled with the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Ramos, Xabi
Alonso, Paco Gento, Alfredo Di Stefano (although technically, he was
Argentinian), David Villa, Raúl, Fabregas, Pique, Busquets, Guardiola, Luis
Enrique, Txiki Bigiristain, Iker Casillas… Too many to mention.
CF Reus. A club
that could seen as the perfect example of a yo-yo club, except they never
bounced up to the top flight. It does feel like a shame, that a club who seem
to have gone through so much, in regards so many promotions and relegations
never got the chance to play against the big boys of Spanish football, with the
exception of that two legged tie against Atletico Madrid, in which they proved
they could compete. It does seem a bit unfair to the loyal fan of the club, who
would have experienced so many highs and lows, that in the end it was all taken
away from them simply because of financial mismanagement. The other aspect,
when I was doing my research, was that the LFP did not help the club enough
when they were in trouble and therefore they have been the ones to blame fot he
clubs ‘Death’. CF Reus are one of the more recent clubs that I have covered, in
regards their demise, and therefore it should be said that even though they
have gone, they still have thousands of followers on social media platforms
such as Instagram and Twitter. We are talking over 30k in both cases. However,
maybe social media followers isn’t what they needed. Maybe it was the fact they
could only fit just over 4,000 people into their home stadium that meant they
could never generate enough revenue to pay the players they had on their books
when playing in Spanish football’s second tier. That is the only explanation I
can think of as to why this small Catalonian club failed to survive in these
modern times where money seems to be king in football, and even loyal support
cannot guarantee a club will survive. I often ask myself the question for each
club I write about, as you may have seen and will see in the other pieces as to
whether we will see another CF Reus. I think the answer to these questions is a
yes, but in what capacity and who will resurrect it? That, I can’t answer.