Peter Lim has received a letter of interest from Valencia’s former vice president Miguel Zorio to buy the Spanish club.
Zorio says he has organised the funding via Madrid-based lender Toro Finance to buy out Lim’s €250million shares in Valencia.
The bid has pledged to share 51 per cent of the club’s shares among Valencia season ticket holders and fanbase within a three-year timeframe.
Zorio’s bid has also claimed they will seek further investors to help financially boost the club, including from the city’s business community.
Zorio has previously submitted bids to Lim which have been swiftly rejected but this bid, which Lim was sent in late December, has yet to receive an official response although sources close to the club remain skeptical to how serious the offer is.
Lim has been the subject of protests from Valencia’s fanbase in recent years.
Supporters had hoped that Lim would restore the club, which thrived domestically and in Europe during the 2000s, to prominence after taking over in 2014.
Yet Valencia’s ownership have continued to cut costs in recent seasons with diminishing returns on the pitch and their planned Nou Mestalla stadium has yet to be finished — Zorio’s bid has pledged to complete the project, which has estimated costs of €250m, within three years if his bid is successful.
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Valencia won the Copa del Rey in 2019 under Marcelino but he was sacked along with director of football, Mateu Alemany, after disagreements over transfer policy.
Marcelino also guided the club to successive top four finishes but the club have not finished higher than ninth in the four years since.
The former Champions League regulars finished just two points and two places above the relegation in La Liga last season but results have improved this season — they currently sit seventh in the Spanish top-flight.
Valencia’s current head coach Ruben Baraja is the club’s 16th full-time boss since 2012.
‘Sale talk likely to be met with scepticism’
Analysis by Dermot Corrigan
Many in Valencia would like to see Lim leave the club and the city, and blame him for a deterioration in the team’s level and club’s finances over his more than a decade in charge.
However there will be scepticism as to whether this latest offer to buy the club will make any difference to the situation.
Lim has rejected offers in the past, both from Zorio and other investor groups, with a feeling that the Singapore-based businessman is waiting for the right moment in which to sell the club at the best possible price.
That may not be the current moment — given Valencia are close to restarting work on their new stadium, which has sat half-finished for more than 15 years. To do so they still require permits from city hall, with the club confident that everything will be in place to begin construction again within the next two months.
Zorio is a regular critic of Lim, although his reputation with Los Che fans is mixed, given his past as a vice-president when work stopped at the New Mestalla site back in 2009.
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Peter Lim’s six years at Valencia
(Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty Images)
