A club that reaches a European Cup final generally means a rather well-managed club, or a club that has attractive financial resources. Rayo Vallecano, finalist of the last Conference League – lost to Crystal Palace – does not meet either of these two criteria. It is a very modest formation, which survives with a meager budget and a squad generally made up of players from other bottom-of-the-table or second-division clubs. But above all, it is an extremely poorly managed club, from an institutional point of view at least. In this context, having managed to reach a European final, even though it was “only” the Conference League, is quite an achievement. What portends an exciting and ambitious 2026/2027 season? Clearly not…
Indeed, coach Iñigo Pérez, one of the main architects of the project, packed his bags to join Villarreal. The squad lost players like Nobel Mendy and Pep Chavarría, who respectively left for Hull City and Chelsea, and the emblematic captain Oscar Trejo, who retired, and who was very important in the locker room. The players who have arrived are bets which do not, a priori, offer any sporting guarantee, like the Georgian winger Giorgi Tsitaishvili, who arrives free after leaving Dinamo kyiv, or Jozhua Vertrouwd, young central defender who arrives from Castellon (D2). Not necessarily the transfer window that we would expect from a team that has had a historic season…
Rayo no longer has a stadium
But the main problem may not be there. Rayo Vallecano is used to this type of transfer window, and it must be said that the club’s recruitment unit is quite competent. The same cannot be said of the management. Criticized for an extremely long time by supporters, President Raul Martin Presa acted up again this summer. The club from the south of the Spanish capital simply does not have a stadium in which to play its matches. The Madrid region thus withdrew the club from using the Estadio de Vallecas, which had been considered dilapidated for a very long time. This time, the workers hired by the region were able to observe numerous breaches of primary safety rules, which could put the public in great danger. The stadium’s electrical installations would thus be shoddy, fire-fighting measures not respected, rooms in the stadium littered with waste and rubbish, and even risks of Legionnaire’s disease.
The Madrid region therefore wanted to launch, without delay, a series of lightning works to resolve these problems. However, the workers sent by the autonomous government were prevented from accessing the stadium by club employees, prompting the region to file a complaint with the police. Institutional war in progress therefore between the government and the club, with two main victims: the players and the supporters. Both have already denounced on numerous occasions the incompetence of their management and the imperative need for work in their stadium, but had not been listened to. The result is here…
Where will Rayo play this season?
Rayo Vallecano, who launched their season with a defeat in Seville this weekend, must nevertheless welcome Alavés on Thursday evening for the second day of the championship. Everything indicates that the match will be played at Butarque, Leganés stadium, a few kilometers further, in the southern suburbs of Madrid. For its part, Rayo Vallecano is working hard to bring its stadium up to standard for Thursday, and finally be able to host the match. And above all, the following, even if the trend is very negative. The possibility of playing in Burgos, a town 250km north of Madrid, was also mentioned. A hypothesis which logically displeases everyone within the club’s fanbase, extremely loyal and demanding.
“We will not be present in the Butarque stadium, nor in the stands of El Plantío (Burgos stadium, editor’s note), nor in those of any other stadium than that of Vallecas. We demand that Rayo Vallecano informs its season ticket holders of the number of matches that will be played outside Vallecas. We think it is essential that the club carries out this transparency exercise”club supporters recently communicated. It must be said that the subscription campaign was already well underway when we learned that Rayo would not be able to play without its stadium, and that on top of that, prices increased by around 15%. Enough to trigger the anger of supporters and players who, as explained above, even came forward publicly against their management. A lunar situation which does not bode well for the coming season.
