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“It’s a historic moment for the club — the first time in many years we’ve been in the final,” Real Mallorca president Andy Kohlberg says. “It’s a reflection of the work we’ve done over the years, building a foundation for the club, trying to grow each year and improve.”
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Kohlberg has been club president since January 2016, arriving as one of a group of North American investors who bought a team then struggling in Spain’s second tier for around €20million (£17.1m; $21.7m at current rates).
The seven seasons since have brought plenty of ups and downs for the side from the largest of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, but Mallorca are now settled in La Liga, and Saturday’s Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao is another sign of the progress made on and off the field.
“It has been a rollercoaster, but we feel we are making progress towards the stabilisation of the club,” Kohlberg says. “Everyone’s really excited, the fans are really excited.”
Also involved in Mallorca’s ownership group from the start were former Phoenix Suns basketball star Steve Nash and that NBA team’s then owner Robert Sarver, along with ex-United States international and former Premier League player Stuart Holden. Ex-England left-back Graeme Le Saux is an advisor to the owners, while Steve Kerr, head coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, became a minority investor in August.
Nash, Holden and Le Saux spoke to The Athletic in 2020 (midway through the rollercoaster ride) about their commitment to and excitement in Mallorca’s fortunes, and all of those in the ownership group who can make it will be at the Cartuja stadium in Seville for Saturday’s final.
“Almost everybody is coming,” says Kohlberg. “Steve Kerr obviously has a job he has to attend to (Golden State play at Dallas Mavericks on Saturday). But Steve Nash is coming, Graeme is coming, and several of the other owners as well. I think everybody will enjoy a great final.”
When Kohlberg arrived in 2016, Mallorca were at a historic low, near the bottom of Spain’s second division. They had been hit by financial and institutional turmoil, building up debts of over €30million that the new owners had to assume.
Kohlberg and his fellow investors had looked at other options, including Rangers in Scotland, Bolton Wanderers, then in England’s second tier, and Getafe and Levante in Spain.
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Mallorca were interesting as a historic club, reaching the final of the last ever UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1999 (beating Chelsea in the semis) and winning the 2002-03 Copa del Rey, but then fell on hard times. They had a loyal local base of fans and partner businesses, along with international recognition through tourism to the island, around 130 miles (200km) south across the water from Barcelona and flanked by its neighbours Ibiza and Menorca.
The beginnings were not easy.
Mallorca played in a different division to the one they’d been in a year earlier in each of the first six seasons with Kohlberg and his colleagues in charge — including falling into the semi-pro third tier in 2017.
Recent seasons have been more stable, finishing 16th in 20-team La Liga in 2021-22 as a promoted side, improving to ninth last year, and now reaching Spain’s equivalent of the FA Cup final. Key hires have included luring sporting director Pablo Ortells from Villarreal in April 2020 and appointing former Mexico national manager Javier Aguirre in March 2022.
“I’ve been involved with the Phoenix Suns for 20 years now (he is vice-chairman), so we have always taken a long-term perspective,” says Kohlberg, who speaks regularly to Liverpool director Mike Gordon (Liverpool owner Fenway Sports Group’s stable also includes baseball’s Boston Red Sox and ice hockey’s Pittsburgh Penguins) and other Americans who own football clubs in Europe.
“Even when we were in the second and third divisions, going back up, dropping back down, we continued to have confidence and invest and stick with our original objective: long-term stability in La Liga, and to be a top-10 club. Even though the first five years were very difficult.”
Paying off debts ate up a big chunk of each season’s TV revenues, and La Liga’s strict salary rules meant Mallorca had to be smart in the transfer market to improve their squad with loan deals, such as taking the then-teenage Japanese talent Takefusa Kubo from Real Madrid in 2019-20, and signings including South Korean forward Lee Kang-in. Having arrived on a free from Valencia in summer 2021 at age 20, they sold Lee to French champions Paris Saint-Germain last summer for €22million.
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They have also cleverly played the European transfer market, with cut-price hits including tough Slovakia international centre-back Martin Valjent, and Kosovo striker, and fans’ cult hero, Vedat Muriqi.
“Pablo and his scouting department — Sergio Moya and the whole team — do a great job,” Kohlberg says. “Nobody gets it right all the time, but we have got a couple of key decisions on players correct and we have built a club where players enjoy coming. Young players, agents and other clubs now view Mallorca as a good place to develop.”
Mallorca’s salary cap for this season is €61million, 12th among La Liga teams. For comparison purposes, league leaders Real Madrid can spend €727m while Real Sociedad, who Mallorca beat in the Copa del Rey semi-finals, have a cap of €125m.
Selling Lee financed another upgrade to the squad, which included bringing in Canada international centre-forward Cyle Larin for €7.5million from Club Bruges in Belgium and midfielder Sergi Darder for €8m.
Darder was born on Mallorca, before playing elsewhere for teams including Lyon in France and Barcelona’s Espanyol, but now is part of a local core in the squad that also features long-serving forward Abdon Prats and midfielder Antonio Sanchez.
“That stability and continuity has been very important,” says Kohlberg. “When we beat Real Madrid (at home) for the first time, in 2019, we had seven players on the pitch who had been with us in the third division.”
Off the pitch, Mallorca have also been making strides.
Around €20million has been invested in a complete revamp of their Son Moix stadium, with most of this money coming from La Liga’s deal with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
The project included removing an unloved and unused athletics track surrounding the pitch and improving the matchday experience for all fans.
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“Our principal objective was to move the fans closer to the action,” Mallorca chief executive Alfonso Diaz says. “Now it is a football stadium, before you could not really call it that.
“We have also worked hard on everything around matchday: the entrances, the comfort of the seats, the food and beverage offer, having a spectacle before the game with a light show featuring traditional demons from Balearic Islands culture.”
The club’s season-ticket sales have grown from 6,000 to over 21,000 in the past five years. The renovation of the stadium also means VIP or hospitality seats now number 1,800, up from 500. Seats are sold at seven different price points, with different ‘experiences’ including seats for fans beside the managers’ benches, the ability to watch the teams in the tunnel pre-game, or a terrace providing views of both the pitch and the island’s Tramuntana mountains.
“Our base is always our fans, who have been with us unconditionally,” Diaz says. “But in (tourism) high-season especially, we sell many hospitality tickets to foreign visitors, principally English, Germans, Scandinavians, who are happy to pay for something different. Everyone can find the type of matchday experience and price that suits them.”
Mallorca’s links to Phoenix Suns, and their owners’ experiences in other sports and countries, have been beneficial in designing the stadium experiences, and at different levels within the football club.
This is more immediately obvious on the business side. Mallorca’s commercial partners include American company Footprint, which is also the name sponsor for the Suns’ home stadium.
The respective medical and fitness departments are also in regular contact, while Mallorca executives regularly visit Phoenix to see what works there. NBA legends Nash and Kerr and (Phoenix general manager — roughly equivalent to a sporting director in football) James Jones have visited to speak to Mallorca staff and players.
Holden, Kerr and Nash also chat regularly with Mallorca-based Le Saux and Ortells about football issues, and also advising on club matters with Diaz.
“We visit the Phoenix Suns a few times a year, to know what they do and where they are going,” Diaz says. “Even to be able to pick up the phone and call them, it is a privilege for us, this access. But we adapt everything we see to a local experience. We cannot just copy and paste what they do in the U.S., as for sure it would not work here. They are different cultures, so you have to know how to take the best from each place and adapt it.”
Less positive was the racism and sexism scandal that saw Sarver suspended by the NBA and fined $10million in September 2022, then quickly sell his share of the basketball team. In June last year, his connection with Mallorca also ended, with Kohlberg becoming its majority shareholder.
Saturday’s meeting with Athletic Bilbao is Mallorca’s first final since they last won the Copa del Rey over two decades ago.
Expectation on the island has been feverish, as has the scramble for tickets at the 60,000-capacity Estadio La Cartuja. Kohlberg says the club are working with authorities to help 20,000 locals travel to Seville, in the south of the Spanish mainland.
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“It is the first time anyone has ever tried to accomplish this feat,” he says. “Alfonso and the team here are working very hard, doing a fantastic job, and everyone is very excited.”
Mallorca’s run to the final started with victories against lower-division sides Boiro, Valle De Egues, Burgos and (after extra time) Tenerife. The quarter-finals brought a thrilling 3-2 home win over Girona, who were top of La Liga at the time, as Mallorca took a three-goal half-time lead, then had to cling on with 10 men after a red card midway through the second half.
The two-leg semi-final was a nervy affair against Real Sociedad (who qualified for the knockout phase of the Champions League this season), only decided by a penalty shootout in the away game in San Sebastian.
“It was crazy,” Kohlberg says. “Some of the best five penalties I have ever seen.”
Nuestro camino hasta 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚.
— Real Mallorca (@RCD_Mallorca) April 4, 2024
🖤❤️🏆 pic.twitter.com/8uhvpRj5Io
Being involved in Spanish football’s showpiece occasion — there are no La Liga games this weekend as the cup final takes centre stage — is an opportunity for Mallorca to continue their progress of recent years. Money from La Liga’s CVC deal was also earmarked for growing the club’s brand internationally, for example helping them move from a million social media followers to almost six million across different platforms.
Aguirre’s team have balanced their cup exploits with consistent form in La Liga. A well-drilled unit, they conceded just one goal in the past four games, in a 1-0 away defeat against champions Barcelona, and are currently 15th in the table, six points above the relegation zone with eight matches to go.
However, they will be outsiders against Athletic, who beat them 4-0 in La Liga in early February, and have a €100million salary cap (seventh-highest in the division) and a team including internationals Unai Simon and Nico Williams (Spain) and Inaki Williams (Ghana).
An upset win for Aguirre’s team would bring European football to the Son Moix for the first time in two decades but Kohlberg says the most important thing will be to continue consistent growth towards the objective — regularly finishing in the top 10 of La Liga.
“The final brings the club to another level,” he says. “Should we win and be in the Europa League, that brings us to another level. But win or lose, we will continue with our path, building the foundation and stabilising the club. The next steps include improving our academy and investing in young players, improving the squad, and then we still have some more work to do at the stadium.
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“Consistency and stabilisation we are looking for; not necessarily one-year objectives, but a long-term plan.”
Kohlberg has experience of the NBA finals with Phoenix, who lost four games to two against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021. The former tennis professional — he was a mixed doubles semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 1987 — believes the one-off format of football finals gives Mallorca a real chance.
“The NBA finals are the best of seven — home and away, back and forth, it’s just very different,” he says. “And football is a more emotional game, one play, one red card, one lucky bounce, one referee decision can change the game. In basketball, that rarely happens.
“Over a seven-game series, the best team almost always wins. In football, anything can happen on a given day, and I have a good feeling about Saturday.”
(Top photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
