By: Max Pereira
If 2022 has been a tense, turbulent year, with many polarizations, crises and difficulties, 2023 already promises many worries, pressures, criticisms, uncertainties and lack of definitions. While the world salutes and follows in the wake of a Pope and a King, bombs continue to explode in Ukraine, the economic crises, aggravated by the pandemic, by the war in Eastern Europe and by international geopolitics, continue to shake the main world economies, the climate authorities turn on the planet’s highest alert, the Covid virus has not been completely eradicated and is still a threat to humanity and in Brazil a new government is taking the first steps towards the reconfiguration of the country it has proposed to do without the right to make mistakes and under the weight of a responsibility and a herculean mission, given the acute and extreme ideological political polarization that is delimiting the Brazilian nation in recent years, Atlético, faithful to its tradition and history , sees its foundations shake with the disclosure of boring, worrying yet incredibly not entirely surprising news.
As reported by Fala Galo, “At the end of the afternoon of this Monday (2), Multiplan Empreendimentos Imobiliários published on its official website that the purchase of the rest of Shopping Diamond Mall has not been completed”. The news dropped like a bombshell in the athletics world. And, together with it, other information which, far from bringing peace of mind and confidence in the hearts and souls of the alvinegras, has had the power to increase the dissatisfaction and disbelief of its fans in relation to what is being done at the club and to the quality of management.
According to what has been widely reported by Atlético and detailed here on Fala Galo, the transaction to conclude the purchase of the remaining 49.9% of the mall was announced in early August last year, with values around R$ 340 million , where R$ 136 million would be paid in cash and the rest in 12 installments with monthly correction of the consumer price index (HICP).
Even without an official statement from the club, conventional and alternative media alternated in seeking and disseminating information on what motivated Multiplan’s withdrawal. Fala Galo, jealous and responsible as always, brought the information that Atlético understood that Multiplan would have blocked the negotiation to gain time and change the initial proposal. Incidentally, the club itself had already been informed of the cheating days ago.
And Fala Galo went further in the search for information (the expert guarantees: “this sale would be very difficult due to the tax debts that the club has”). Another person accessed by FG pointed out: “Multiplan requested numerous documents and carried on the business, earning deadlines. Finally, in the last week, I wanted to change the rules, wanting to buy only 25%, since this percentage already guarantees total control of actions and decisions in the company. The action was a corporate strategy to change the corporate scenario, since they (Multiplan) have always had the preference in buying and, there, Atlético had a proposal and they said they would cover it.”
As we try to find out more about this dispute between the club and Multiplan, more information comes to light that makes the athletic fan even more uneasy and irritated. For example, the news that the purchase contract has not even been signed and that, although the exchange of documents has already begun, the non-signing ends with the non-existence of a penalty, has left many contract workers reproached and disappointed with the future of the club.
Not even the information that the club will study measures to protect itself from now on, given that the process can be long and Atlético will suffer a lot from interest and lost revenues, convinced and reassured the Alvinegro fan. Another fact that would have annoyed the athletic command is that, according to the club, Multiplan would have made public a negotiation still in progress, in secret. And, while nothing can yet be considered definitive, as happens in the business world, the losses accumulated by the club due to the withdrawal of the Multiplan are already significant and extremely worrying.
A specialist lawyer, who has NO professional relationship with Atlético, and who preferred not to be identified, consulted by Fala Galo, guaranteed “that the difficulties in the negotiation came from the guarantee terms to respect the payment of taxes such as (Profut) and others that Atlético owes around R$ 300 million”.
and concluded: “This transfer would be very difficult given the financial conditions of the club. The shopping center guarantees various tax debts that would need to be authorized for the replacement of the property, in order not to configure foreclosure fraud. When you have stock and debt, you can’t sell that equity easily, there’s the idea that an execution could be fraud.”
And here could really be Multiplan’s fear of finalizing the deal. Now, if the creditors understood that the club would be liquidating an asset without paying off the debt and, therefore, reducing its ability to receive, Multiplan fears to close the deal, pay Atlético and, subsequently, see the operation canceled due to possible irregularities. This way the club should return the money to the Shoppings admin who would have already made a payment. For no other reason, Multiplan asked for a guarantee of 300 million reais, which Atlético refused.
It is clear that the relationship between the club and Multiplan has deteriorated. And it is even clearer that the impact of all this on the club’s finances is devastating, as interest rates will continue to erode the club’s financial health, there would be no expected revenue from the sale of the Mall and, consequently, the club he could not, as he had planned, pay off the famous onerous debts. Even if the club resumes negotiations with Multiplan itself or with other interested parties, the scenarios must be re-evaluated and it is necessary to inquire about what the correction of the property’s value would be in that period of time.
The club promises to officially pronounce itself on this breakthrough. But, what is essential to understand is that, in addition to clarifying the facts, i.e. informing their fans about what actually led Multiplan to give up on the deal and what was blocking CADE’s approval of the transfer, Atlético must show which paths the club should follow and which strategies will be implemented so that Glorioso overcomes this setback and does not become unfeasible.
And it is not an exaggeration to use the verb to make unfeasible. Even those who criticized the sale of the Mall from the first part with a certain correctness, i.e. that first 50.1% and the consequent construction of the MRV Arena, for having understood that it was a daring and unjustified undertaking in the ways and times which if they come true, they understand that the failure to conclude at this time the agreement with Multiplan in relation to the acquisition of the remaining 49.9% of this company, constitutes a disaster for the club’s finances, given that Atlético’s debts they have grown exponentially and the new Casa do Galo is also born with the revenue committed until 2029/30.
All this is speaking for those who are not afraid of the truth. It is no coincidence that the criticisms of the fans on social media are becoming more and more acidic, proportionally reflecting the drop in trust of the fans in those who lead the club’s fortunes.
And, depending on your answers, the discrediting of Atlético in the world of football, in the market in general and, above all, among those who may be interested in acquiring the rest of Shopping and also of SAF, will be devastating. And this is yet another challenge that Athletics managers have to face, with the risk of seeing the club sink into an unprecedented crisis.
THE INFORMATION IN THE TEXT DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE OPINION OF THE FALA GALO PORTAL.
#Black #White #Whos #Afraid #Truth #Speak #Rooster
