The gap between the media and football clubs continues to grow, maybe towards a chasm, and is showing no sign of it being bridged. Gone are the days where managers and journalists would become drinking companions, and sometimes it feels as if the two are pitted against each other. Las Palmas’ General Manager Patricio Vinayo knows both sides of the conversation though.
Initially studying journalism at university and featuring in El Pais in Madrid, Vinayo would then return to his native Gran Canaria to work in the local media. In 2006, he joined his club Las Palmas as Communications Director, before moving into his current role as General Manager in 2009. Football España asked what the biggest mistakes the media make are, seen from inside a club.
“Beforehand I was speaking about this to a colleague. I obtained my degree in journalism, and then in Physical Education, but anything that you can learn from systematised education in the system has nothing to do with the actual experience. Once you are tackling these issues, or working in a football business – I imagine that all businesses have that same component – we suffer and enjoy in equal amounts at the same time:”
“What’s the biggest we mistake we make? This is a discussion that centres on the dichotomy between the emotional and the rational, very often the emotional leads us to the other side of the border. When we talk about teams that we feel something for, or that we support, the emotional overtakes the rational. What they teach you when you’re learning about journalism, is to be objective, to try to be neutral and rational, this is something that is difficult, because when we talk about sport and football, there is a clash between the two.”
One of the key components of football journalism these days, something which has evolved over the past 20 years in order to adapt to the age of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, was the simple need for constant news.
“Fans want to see passion. A lot is said between games, between the final whistle of one match, and the first whistle of the next, but there is a lot of journalistic content between them, and a lot is said, but often, sometimes with the commercial side in mind, that type of journalism is based on emotion. They talk about their fears and their phobias, when they talk about their home club. Maybe that alters the reality a little bit, and distorts things. When there’s no news, sometimes they look for it, because every day the newspaper is sold, and people listen to the radio every day.”
“However I think that in Gran Canaria, I think that we are living in a time, and have been for several years now, where the journalism world, our entorno, has been very understanding. They understand how small we are. We’re just a small blob on the map in the middle of the vast ocean as a team. So with our modesty, using more imagination or creativity than financial resources, Las Palmas are trying to find its way amongst the big-hitters, which has been dominated by big two trans-Atlantic clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona.”
Equally, as difficult as it is to behave rationally, marketing reasonable decisions as a way of getting fans into the stadiums is not so easy. Las Palmas and Vinayo have been up front about their model of moving on players and academy talents, but that can create problems. Ultimately if the results aren’t there, and the football isn’t entertaining, financial stability is stiff sell. How exactly do Las Palmas bridge that gap between allowing fans to dream, which is ultimately what football is about, and sensible management?
“The executives are always midway between the rational and the emotional. Rationality provides good results in the medium to long term, it does generate conflict with the fans, because on the one hand, sometimes they don’t understand decisions taken for the mid-to-long-term, but that prove to be the right ones.”
“We are a group of people at the club at the moment that know very clearly what the danger of disappearing is. We’ve seen that threat and it was real for a number of years. So we know the goal is sustainability. Without sustainability, it is impossible to think about bigger challenges. For nine years, we were in the second division, with Miguel Angel Ramirez as president, we were in the third tier, and for us it was crossing the desert. We went up and then during those nine years, we grew in a gradual and cohesive manner, facing a lot of problems regarding infrastructure, with a lot of gaps, scant organisation of human resources. We all did our bit. We all tried to do a wide range of tasks.”
This season at least, finding the balance between providing excitement and taking good decisions isn’t a problem for Las Palmas, with Garcia Pimient at the helm. After earning promotion last season, Las Palmas are on course to avoid relegation comfortably, with 15 points separating Pio Pio from the drop zone, and just nine games remaining. With a famous victory over Atletico Madrid to boot, it’s not a choice they’ve had to make.
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