War

By: Cesar | July 7th, 2009

Vicente Soriano wants to fix the problems at Valencia CF.

He has an investor – or so we think.
Inversiones Dalport SA exists. On paper, at least.

He said Inversiones Dalport SA wants to invest €500m in the club. To buy the old Mestalla. To be the guiding hand of the team.

A scour of the web reveals little about the investor (see below). Soriano’s press conference yesterday was more an exercise in vagueness than revealing in any way.

So what now?

It looks like Soriano is going to have to gear up for a war.

According to Las Provincias, VCF’s board of directors, headed by Manuel Llorente, are looking for an investor to buy a large packet of shares at tomorrow’s supposed capital increase/share sale meeting … which Soriano said wasn’t needed anymore.

Confused? I’ve been confused since Juan Soler came on board.

The capital increase will go on as planned. Although Llorente received the notarized note from Soriano indicating the intent of purchase by Dalport, the sale can’t be stopped now.

And I believe Llorente’s incentive to keep the sale going is evident now – the board is trying to counter Soriano’s bold move by presenting their own counter attack.

Smart? I think so … Soriano didn’t reveal much yesterday and many are nervous over the details that were brushed over at yesterday’s press conference.

But this means there will probably be a power struggle at the club.

Soriano will have to do more than present papers and say the name of the investor.

He’ll actually have to provide tangible details. And that’s a good thing.

According to Las Provincias, Dalport is originally Uruguayan and has already paid Juan Soler for his shares. They also have dealings with Ford and Bancaja, a Spanish bank.

But here’s where things get fishy.

Here’s a comment from Tristan White, head of the great Che-UK supporter’s club in England.

It does a great job of summarizing the detective work many VCF supporters have been doing since yesterday’s press conference …

According to WHOIS domain tools, http://whois.domaintools.com/inversionesdalport.com (Dalport’s website doesn’t exist) was registered last December by VICTOR BRAVO. address Geranios 11 in Boadilla del Monte, Madrid.

People warn about having lost investments with this company in the past on various discussion forums, such as http://inza.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/como-denunciar-fraudes-estafas-y-delitos-por-internet-2/comment-page-27/#comment-26841

Take money for investments and then disappear etc etc. See on this link various people’s anger dating back to 2007.

This, coupled with the fact that they copied their logo out of a kids’ colouring book (see those other links), makes me feel rather worried.

Also, why are they so elusive? They are apparently Uruguayan originally (though no mentions on the Internet of them prior to the last couple of days). They have close Valencia ties (according to Soriano) but these are unclear. Someone back at the end of June (hence, BEFORE any press release linking Valencia with Dalport) started a discussion forum
http://inversionesdalport.foroactivo.net
(clearly, not created by Dalport)
in which there is just the one post, by Admin, which warns people to be wary of Víctor Vicente Bravo, and goes on to say “and if you don’t believe me, ask Air Comet” – the Madrid based airline that flies to Latin America and which has been suspended by IATA because they have not paid their bills and are facing bankrupcy (many staff have not been paid since January), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Comet

Has the financial problems come from a bad investment the company made with Dalport? Who knows. Certainly, this is what the mysterious “Admin” is suggesting back last June, before Dalport was mentioned as the Valencia investors! So very odd.

So who are Dalport? Some kind of conglomerate of investors. Warnings online of people who invested money and never saw it again. But of course this is speculation and conspiracy theories.

But the thing that worries me most, MORE than any people moaning about lost investments with them, MORE than the fact that someone put up a mysterious post warning about Víctor Vicente Bravo a week before they went public, MORE than the fact they don’t have a website, MORE than another supposedly dodgy company, CRON Developments, is registered at the same address and managed by the same Víctor Bravo, etc etc. is the issue with the logo.

What company, with £500m to spend on buying Mestalla, cannot afford money to pay a logo designer to design an original logo, rather than copying perfectly an eagle from a kid’s colouring book?

It certainly seems odd. I don’t know what will happen next. But whatever statements are made, this logo one will need addressing, as it has made Dalport appear the biggest bunch of amateurs this side of, errm, Valencia Experience.

Let’s hope that our fears are allayed …