Space Cowboys: The state of La Gola

I keep reliving things. I am disorientated by reoccurrences. I need to constantly check where I am – in time, if not space. Mallorca is a time continuum. Everything happens again. If not moans about all-inclusives, if not corruption cases, if not fiestas of demons and DJs, if not an editorial in “The Bulletin”, then a story that I have read or have covered – just with similar words in a different order. When was it? I only know that I am in a different time because I am an archivist. I store information. I refer.

I am back in August last year. There is more heat, but this is the only clue to a different time. I have found it. 9 August – on the blog. The story in yesterday’s “Diario” reinforces this déjà vu by including the word “dejadez” in its headline. It means neglect or untidiness, but the latter is too tidy a word. Vandalism, degradation; these are stronger, less tidy words. Here are some other words, very tidy, you would hope – La Gola, Puerto Pollensa.

Go back some eight months, and you can remind yourselves that there were complaints as to the state of La Gola. Graffiti, cigarette ends, dog shit – all courtesy of a whacking great investment of 800 grand to beautify what has long been an eyesore. They’ve invested the best part of a million in creating a dump, an unofficial, aqualanded tip of detritus that has been a colossal folly and waste. They’d have been better off draining the stagnant water and sticking up a four-storey hotel; it would have been more pleasing to the eye. But of course they wouldn’t have done this because La Gola is the “green lung”, a green park in “one of the most important tourist areas on the island”. One that is home to birds, which can now nest on a supermarket trolley in the water. It is also home to night birds, the youth of the “botellón”. Empty bottles, plastic glasses. This is nature reserve, Puerto Pollensa-style.

It’s not as though it wasn’t a completely worthless project. No, no, it was actually very worthy. It still may be. Assuming, that is, that they can ever sort out the management of the “wet space”. La Gola falls under a consortium comprising the town hall and the environment ministry. The town hall, while mindful of the fact that nocturnal piss-ups take place in the park – and one dreads to think what this might mean in terms of the hygiene of the water – and that it needs to command plod to go and sort them out, is passing the buck to the ministry when it comes to actually maintaining La Gola. Not us alone, it protests. The ministry, now under the control of the left-wing Bloc and of course the PSM minister Vicens (he of other controversies, e.g. Muro golf, Alcúdia train), has changed those responsible for this maintenance. They had been appointed by the previous, Unió Mallorquina-run ministry. Here we go again. PSM versus UM, as with golf, as with trains. The former ministry management may have been totally ineffectual and little better (or so it seems to be alleged) than cowboys, but it – via the UM – was at least a comrade with the UM-run town hall. Now we have political rivals forming the consortium.

Reliving. Same problems, same politics. And nothing happens. Stuck in time and stuck in space – the wet space of La Gola. Trolleys and bottles stuck in the mud. What a waste of money – and space.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

This Mess We’re In

Real Mallorca. Pronounce “Real” correctly and it sounds “ray-ahl”. Pronounce it incorrectly, in English, and it is real. Real mess, as in right mess. Not even a hundred days have passed since the new owner, Javier Martí Mingarro, took over, having paid something around 4 million euros for this basket-case of a club. Yet now, he has announced that he has nary a euro to spend. And so the club is up for sale – again. Part of the problem is that banks won’t extend credit. Well, what a surprise. Perhaps someone might have asked them before pen was put to paper and the club went into new ownership. 

Even less of a surprise is the fact that Real Mallorca is awash with debt. Anyone could have read the papers to learn that some 64 million euros (and rising) of short-term debt existed, to say nothing of the other 20 million or so. Anyone could have checked the books and discovered that monthly outgoings on first-team players and other staff amounted to 360,000 euros. Not everyone would have been able to say that other players and staff would not have been paid for two months.

A real mess. A real mess that has been gathering force for some time, thanks to the debt run up by the former owner, Vicente Grande. Force and farce, the latter surrounding the ludicrous episode with Paul Davidson who made a monkey of the fans, the club and his one-time cheerleaders in the local English-speaking press.

What is it with football clubs and pretenders to the ownership thrones? For Real Mallorca, read many others, such as Portsmouth or Newcastle United. Whatever one thinks of Mike Ashley, he did at least have money and did pay off the club’s debts. Real Mallorca cannot even bank on this happening, because the banks won’t chip in. And who can blame them? 

Football appears to attract, more than any other “business”, charlatans, dreamers, egoists and nutters. In England, there is at least more money sloshing around from TV. Not so in Spain, unless the club happens to be Real Madrid or Barça. What does Mallorca get from TV? 1.3 million a month. One comes back also to the fact that the club doesn’t even own the stadium with its capacity not that much greater than that of … hmm, Portsmouth’s Fratton Park. There may be real estate lurking elsewhere, but what would be its prime asset, one that might act as collateral, is not its to put up as security. Again, small wonder that the banks are unwilling to play along. The only salvation is that the team, remarkably, is doing well this season.

 

The so-called “humid space” that is La Gola in Puerto Pollensa enjoyed a visitation a couple of days ago. Up popped the environment minister, Grimalt, alongside Mayor Cerdà to do some sort of topping-out ceremony on the parking area. For once, he wasn’t cutting some tape or helping to plant a tree. The environment minister does get about. One day he’s opening walkways in Son Bauló, then he’s doing the same around Artà, the next he’s giving the boss of TUI Germany a hand with the spade and planting the first pine in the TUI Bosc (forest). The latter is a splendid example of corporate sponsorship for parts of Mallorca. I am all in favour. Indeed, I have previously suggested that resorts could be sponsored. Maybe they will be. The sale of naming rights can bring in a pretty centimo. Just ask Mike Ashley who wants to flog off the naming of St. James’s Park. But there is one more sponsorship that TUI should consider. Indeed one ownership it should consider. 

TUI Real Mallorca. TUI-owned, lock, stock and barrel. There you go. Problem solved.