The accounts do not fail and on Saturday in Mendizorroza (Vitoria) it was confirmed what Málaga CF fans feared the most, although they saw it coming some time ago: the relegation to the First Federation of the Málaga first team, leaving the fashionable Andalusian city, Málaga , without presence in professional football. And between additions and subtractions that only confirm the inevitable, the complex judicial process in which the club has been immersed for three years has brought to light the arbitrariness of a millionaire Qatari sheikh, Abdullah ben Nasser Al Thani, who while he was playing president a sports entity with tradition, has ended up pushing the club into the past, which one day he claimed to want to save.

The defeat against Alavés on the penultimate day of the Second Division and Sporting's draw against Eibar underpinned the return of the blue and whites, a quarter of a century later, to “the hells” of the lower categories of national football, he laments in a statement from the Board of Directors of the Malaguista Peñas Federation, who are not consoled that they are now asking for forgiveness. But how did Málaga CF get to this point?

In the precarious situation that the Malaga team is going through – for a long time in the hands of the whims of the controversial sheikh Al Thani, investigated together with three of his sons for a series of alleged crimes committed in front of the club – it is perfectly reflected in that old popular Spanish saying that says: “they all killed her and she died alone”.

money laundering

The relegation that those from La Rosaleda are now facing has its roots in the most recent history of a hundred-year-old Málaga (founded in 1904) that has not been accompanied by the disappointing performance of its players on the field of play during the current season, nor the wrong decisions of its top managers -sports and administrative-, nor of course, a justice system with slow deadlines that keeps the future of the sports entity hanging by a thread and that does not finish unraveling the skein that would allow advancing towards the light the blue and white

Al Thani joined the club from Malaga in 2010 and for more than a decade the Qatari millionaire and three of his sons whom he had incorporated as members of the Board of Directors have held power at the helm of Málaga CF in an unconventional way which ended up leading the Association of Small Shareholders (APA) of the “boquerón” group to file a complaint against the sheikh and his sons who were on the board not only for imposing abusive agreements and unfair administration, but for money laundering capital and misappropriation.

The lawsuit against the Qatari millionaire and his descendants filed by the APA did not fall on deaf ears and in February 2020 the Investigating Court number 14 of Malaga admitted it for processing and both Malaga and three companies linked to the Al Thani family and the team ended up intervened. At that moment, the judicial soap opera of the all-powerful Al Thani at the head of Málaga CF officially began, the thousand and one scams allegedly carried out by the Qataris began to come to light, and the club's judicial administrator, José María Muñoz, whose head -virtually speaking- ask today -and with good reason- small shareholders and fans.

For many, the departure of the sheikh is key to the future of the entity and surely his departure would have given the blue and whites a breath of fresh air in their free fall, but although much was said about the possibility that the current owner of Paris Saint Germain and from Sporting Club de Braga, the Qatar Sports Investments group – headed by another millionaire Qatari sheikh, Nasser Al-Khelaifi – bought Málaga, the reality is that up to now the operation has not been possible.

In order to sell the 51% of the club's shares that Al Thani has used to date to act as majority shareholder, after losing the other 49% in his dispute with the Blue Bay hotel chain, it is essential that justice be pronounce, among other issues, on the shares that once belonged to former blue and white president Fernando Puche. The titles in question, which represent approximately 0.9%, passed into the hands of Al Thani through the NAS Football company but, according to a police report, they were purchased with money from Málaga CF, so they understand that it was not the sheikh the one who bought the shares, but the club. The reported irregularity opens the door for the acquisition of this percentage of shares to be annulled or withdrawn, as the APA wanted to request, with which Al Thani would be left without his long-awaited majority

And from those muds, these muds: the descent. A disaster for Málaga and a huge disappointment for their long-suffering fans.