José Castro and José María del Nido, last season of ‘Game of Thrones’ in Seville

The future of Seville is unknown. Outside of the team’s delicate sports scene, the waters are stirring in the institutional section, where a certain battle has been waged for months to gain control of the club.

The club will hold a General Meeting of Shareholders on December 29, 2022 and a change in the presidency of the Sevilla team cannot be ruled out.

In this sense, the president, José Castro, has for months had the active opposition of his predecessor, José María del Nido Benavente, who has reiterated on various forums that his ambition is to become president of the club again. In that sense, the desire to Del Nido has so far clashed with the club’s governance deal signed in 2019 among the major shareholders of the club to prevent foreign capital from gaining decision-making power in the entity.

In 2019, Castro and Del Nido, along with the rest of the club’s major shareholders, except foreign investor 777 Partners, signed a governance pact in which all parties provided annual income from the payment of dividends, would vote alike at shareholder meetings, and would take turns serving as club president. However after a few months Del Nido withdrawnor the powers of attorney to your childcalled to be president from 2023, and Since then, it has fought several legal battles with the aim of nullifying the signed pact.

During the last two shareholder meetings, Del Nido has not been able to vote in order not to violate the agreement and has therefore requested precautions to allow free voting. The Court of First Instance number 10 of Seville sent an order to both parties on Tuesday, December 13, allowing Del Nido to vote freely withoutit belongs to your sonwho is currently vice president of the club.

However, the parties differ on the fine part. Del Nido interprets these precautions as allowing him to vote freely, without joining the Castro group as the pact says and without sanctions. For his part, The current president’s group interprets that the pact is still in place and so are the sanctions to vote against its signatories.

5 million euros: the fine for violating the agreement

In this sense, the pact imposes on the signatories a fine of 5 million euros for any breach of obligations related to the management of the club and 30 million for non-compliance with the pre-emption right, as the parties have agreed not to sell their current shares to outside investors without prior notice to the parties.

These fines already prevented Del Nido from voting in the Shareholders meeting 2021 not to expose himself to them and to secure the conclusion that his order to exercise his right to vote “had no batteries”.

For this year, Del Nido could be at risk of voting given the possibility that the other party will take him to court for violating the pact, though he is more likely to expose himself to it if they give him the numbers to prevail in the vote and win the board to become president again.

The minority vote: decisive

During this time, both groups have continued to buy shares at exorbitant prices, with amounts approaching 2,000 euros per share, with a par value of 60 euros, and these purchases make it difficult to know the exact percentage of each group. Del Nido, the club’s largest individual shareholder, owns about 25% of the sharess, his partners of 777 Partners control 7% and his partner José Gómez Miñán 4%. For his part, castro’s group formed by his shareholding and that of the Alés, Gujarro and Carrión families They have about 40%.

For its part, the minority group Accionistas Unidos has 5% and other small individual shareholders about another 5% and their vote at the Assembly could ultimately be decisive in resolving the uncertainty in Seville.