Lionel Messi Set to Buy Eldense Football Club in Spain
Lionel Messi is preparing a new move in Spain – this time not with a ball at his feet, but with a pen on a contract.
According to Spanish daily Marca, the Argentine icon has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Eldense, the recently promoted Segunda División club based in Elda, in the province of Alicante. If completed, the deal would hand him full ownership of the club’s shares, with no third-party partners involved.
It would also mark his first step into Spanish professional football as an owner, deepening a business footprint he began earlier this year by purchasing Cornellà, the Catalan side currently competing in the third tier. From Barcelona’s outskirts to the industrial town of Elda, Messi is quietly stitching together a new map of influence across Spanish football.
The idea behind the project is straightforward: channel his legacy and wealth back into the game. Eldense, fresh from promotion to the second division, offers exactly that kind of canvas – a historic club trying to stabilise in a brutal, unforgiving league, and doing so within driving distance of Catalonia, where Messi intends to settle once he hangs up his boots at Inter Miami.
The agreement is not yet final. Legal and contractual work is still ongoing, with financial due diligence to be completed before the operation can be signed off. On top of that, the Spanish National Sports Council must approve the takeover, a mandatory step before any new owner can be officially installed. Those close to the process expect everything to be wrapped up in the coming days.
Eldense itself has been no stranger to change at the top. In October 2015, an international investment group with Colombian roots, led by businessman Juan Carlos Trujillo, acquired the club from Pascual Pérez. More recently, rumours swirled around another Argentine, Ricardo Beni, who was linked with a potential purchase worth around 12 million euros. His name faded. Messi’s has returned with far greater weight.
While the boardrooms are busy, the pitch tells a harsher story. Eldense have started life back in the second division poorly: just two points from their first four league games. The club reacted last Monday by dismissing coach Claudio Barragán, the first managerial casualty in the division this season, and they have yet to appoint a successor.
Crossroads for Eldense
So Eldense stand at a crossroads. A struggling team, a vacant dugout, and a global superstar poised to walk through the front door as owner. If the paperwork falls into place, Messi’s next challenge in Spanish football will not be to win titles, but to rebuild a club fighting simply to stay in the league.
