Rayo's chain reaction
Just months out from Rayo Vallecano's centenary, fans are rallying to save the stadium at the heart of its community.
During a property boom nobody wants to be the precarious tenant sitting on prime real estate. Rayo Vallecano, however, are used to being where they’re not meant to be.
Paying €90,000 a year to the Madrid regional government (owners of Estadio de Vallecas), it looks like Rayo’s days of cheap rent for the use of Spain’s most unique stadium are numbered.
The Spanish capital is having “a moment,” according to The Economist. “Madrid has become a hot destination for the moneyed classes,” wrote Rachel Sanderson for Bloomberg.
And now, just months out from the club’s centenary, regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso confirmed to Diario AS that the Madrid government and club are in talks to relocate Rayo away from its barrio (neighbourhood) because “it’s becoming increasingly unsustainable to stay in Vallecas.”
“What is really unsustainable is football today,” responded Daniel Verdú in El País, citing the example of the financially-crippled FC Barcelona and its billion-euro stadium redevelopment. “Unsustainable is a club, that nourishes and is nourished by the ecosystem of a community, being forced to leave in favour of an urban development operation.”
Just nine short metro stops south of Madrid’s kilometre zero, Puerta del Sol, the area in and around Rayo’s rickety home is ripe for redevelopment. Vallecas would soon earn a place on the dreaded coolest neighbourhoods in the world list, a precursor to gentrification. The iconic lines of laundry connecting high-rise apartment blocks that date back decades would be replaced by lines of Sunday brunchers waiting to photograph smashed avocado toast and hipster bicycles mounted on walls.
Forcing Rayo to relocate would be a green light for speculation and accumulation.
While such uncertainty would paralyse most other clubs and fanbases, there’s one thing you need to understand about Rayo Vallecano: nothing about Rayo Vallecano makes sense.
Its recent history has been conditioned by chaos but, somehow, Rayo has always managed to bend rather than break. Over the past decade, it has spent more seasons (six) in the Primera Division than the one-club city giants Real Zaragoza, Real Oviedo, Sporting Gijón, and Deportivo La Coruña combined.
Free of great expectations and the back-breaking weight of past glories that continue to prove too heavy for many once-great clubs, there’s a curious sort of breeziness about Rayo that can be traced to its place in a community that shows unwavering support while expecting little in return. In the Primera, Rayo is a yo-yo club playing with house money - the most dangerous type of opponent is one with nothing to lose.
“Rayo Vallecano court more drama than a South American telenovela,” wrote Robbie Dunne in Working Class Heroes - the proposed plan to move Spain’s most barrio-centric team out of its neighbourhood is just the latest twist in the soap opera.
A call to arms…in arms
Four hours before a crucial La Liga clash with their Andalusian amigos from Cádiz on the first Saturday of March, more than 300 Rayo Vallecano fans braved a bitterly cold afternoon in Madrid to form a human chain around the circumference of Estadio de Vallecas.
“We won’t be moved,” they chanted.
With generations of Rayo fans arm in arm - some smoking, others drinking beer - the chain symbolised both the readiness of the people to rally around their flag and the enduring connection between club and community. In their view, the barrio needs the stadium to be given a facelift rather than bulldozers and get-rich-quick urban developments.
“Anyone who understands Rayo and the DNA of the club,” says Paul Reidy, “knows that if you take Rayo Vallecano - by their nature from Vallecas - out of their current area and stick them elsewhere, you lose the essence of the club and what it stands for.”
A season ticket holder between 2003-2019, he knows that Rayo without Vallecas wouldn’t be the same. Ditto Vallecas without Rayo.
15 seasons is a long time in Rayo years.
Just one season is a long time in Rayo years.
“Rayo always happen to be, or appear to be,” wrote Robbie Dunne, “on the precipice of a complete breakdown which manifests as tension between owners and fans, between the establishment and the people of Vallecas.”
This latest episode shows how quickly disputes in Spain can become politicised, and football is all too often reduced down to its lowest common political denominator. Left or right.
Having governed the Madrid region since June 1995, the low-tax and light-regulation liberal approach of the conservative Partido Popular contrasts starkly with the working-class values of the Vallecas barrio and the fans of its football team. “Rayo is the only team in the Primera who can, without even hesitating, identify with the political left,” wrote Quique Peinado in ¡A Las Armas!
But there’s another thing you need to know about this club: there are, in fact, two Rayo Vallecanos.
An abusive relationship
“I often wonder if I am doomed when I go to (Estadio de) Vallecas,” a friend recently said to me.
Along with the stadium’s flooded bathrooms and filthy seats, there are shaky staircases and flimsy ceilings. And that’s after enduring ludicrously long lines - often in extreme temperatures - to buy season and match tickets at short notice. Queuing - outside banks and bakeries and lottery shops - is a national pastime in Spain. Standing in searing heat for hours on end, however, isn’t.
With its door buzzer entry system, meanwhile, I have found it harder to get into Rayo’s club “shop” than some banks in Madrid. Not that there’s much of value inside - unless you fancy a random XXL goalkeeper shirt from 2012.
“Vallecas is a glorious shambles,” wrote Michael Cox in The Athletic. “It’s adjacent to some abandoned, overgrown futsal pitches and is most famous for having only three sides — the fourth, behind the goal, simply backs onto a couple of apartment blocks. The club shop is smaller than my local newsagent and much of the floor space is simply empty cardboard boxes.”
Sid Lowe points to the “useless” lot in charge and the set-up costs ( the administration avoids infrastructural investments at all costs) as two potential reasons for Rayo being the only team in Spain’s Primera Division without an online ticketing system. “I wouldn't be surprised if they have decided that they quite like the idea of being deliberately awkward too, especially if it screws over supporters who the owner hates,” he tells me.
The owner is Raúl Martín Presa.
“A fella with a lot of hair gel and little empathy,” wrote Quique Peinado, “he’s adamant to end the spirit of the club.”
In April 2021, the leader of the far-right Vox party Santiago Abascal and colleague Rocío Monasterio were guests for Albacete’s visit to the most left-wing professional football ground in Spain.
Presa’s blatant antagonism was met by one of Rayo fans’ most potent tools: humour. Dressed in hazmat suits and armed with cleaning products, some 300 fans returned the following day to disinfect the stadium.
The below Copa 90 video examines the social and political elements at their heart of the club’s identity, illustrating why the histories of Vallecas and Rayo Vallecano are inseparable.
It also explains why there are two Rayos: the socially-conscious fanbase and the inept institution headed by Presa.
Greece lightning
To get a flavour of what it’s like to support Madrid’s barrio team, here we have four phases of Rayo-ness with La Liga TV presenter and host of The Spanish Football Podcast, Phil Kitromilides.
(“Greece lightning”: Phil is half Greek and “rayo” is the Spanish word for lightning…I’ll get my coat)
Phase 1 - Fretting Phil
Phase 2 - Fed-up Phil
Phase 3 - Glass-half-full(?) Phil
Phase 4 - Fulfilled Phil
As demonstrated by the four phases of Phil, Rayo the institution and Rayo the fanbase have a take-take relationship: the club takes the fanbase’s money, and it also takes the piss.
How can such devotion, I wonder, be met with such disdain?
In July 2019, Paul Reidy voted with his feet - if Rayo are driven out of Vallecas, there’ll be many more fans who follow in his footsteps.
The clown
Seemingly oblivious to the lost income accrued from years of turning ticket purchases into an odyssey and failing miserably on the merchandising front, Presa blames the stadium for hindering the club’s growth. “It’s charming, but it has been obsolete for several years now,” he said during an interview with Onda Madrid.”
He argues that there is no space around the stadium to grow - someone should bring him up to Chamartín to see the redeveloped Santiago Bernabéu. He also points to the need to accommodate a fan base that is growing in spite of, not because of the current administration, but overlooks the reality of what a couple of seasons back down in the Segunda would do to attendances.
From a numbers perspective, a shiny new stadium with VIP boxes and a club shop with stock would seem a logical move for most clubs. But remember, nothing about Rayo Vallecano makes sense. What’s more, who could trust Presa and Co. to get any of this right? His administration’s cowboy builder approach to everything suggests that it would be new site, same shite.
“He (Presa) doesn’t seem willing or want to sell but on the other hand seemingly doesn’t want to turn it into a smooth, efficient club that you’d be proud to own,” Robbie Dunne tells me. “He seems to see owning the club as its own reward without thinking about the steps that come after it.”
Situated on a street named after a clown (Fofó), football fans with Estadio de Vallecas on their bucket list should get booking - the circus mightn’t be in town for much longer.
“The biggest problem facing Madrid is where it can put people,” said The Economist. “The region, with 7m inhabitants, is expected to add another million in the next decade.”
Ahead of its 100th birthday on May 29th, Rayo Vallecano fans are determined to make sure that their club isn’t going to be one of those scrambling to find a new home.
“Professional football is a space of power, the place that businessmen want to conquer in order to exert their influence,” wrote Quique Peinado in ¡A Las Armas! “But as long as long as its people don’t abandon it, Rayo will be a pain in their arse. A glorious pain in their arse.”
