Valencia club president Lay Hoon Chan says the club is not up for sale but that owner Peter Lim would study any offers received.
Lim, 71, is one of Singapore’s richest men and took over at Valencia in 2014. He has become deeply unpopular with a large majority of the club’s supporters and his ownership has been the subject of protests from Valencia’s fanbase in recent years.
Lay Hoon, who is in her second stint as club president under Lim’s ownership, was speaking at a press conference following the club’s AGM on Thursday. With the club bottom of La Liga, the meeting was tense and the president was interrupted multiple times by some of the fanbase’s representative shareholders — some of whom asked about the possibility of a takeover.
“The owner’s son is on the board and the owner has not spoken with me about this issue,” Lay Hoon said. “He has not put the club up for sale. I’ve not heard of any offer, nor is there an offer on the table.”
However, Lay Hoon told the assembled shareholders that a future sale would not be ruled out by the ownership. “If there is an attractive offer, it will be studied for sure, but there is no hurry to sell. I see (Lim) still committed, he supports us, has extended the loan. The Peter who I know does not sell his assets on the cheap.”
The AGM was ended early due to continued disruptions and interruptions from many of the shareholders.
Supporters had hoped 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.
On Thursday, Lay Hoon added that work at the new stadium would resume on January 10 — believed to be a necessary step towards any future takeover of the club.
The high point of Lim’s ownership came in 2019 when Valencia won the Copa del Rey but the success quickly soured after head coach Marcelino and director of football Mateu Alemany were sacked that summer after disagreements over transfer policy.
At that stage, Valencia had also secured back-to-back top four finishes and successive seasons in the Champions League, but results have deteriorated over the years since.
Valencia have not finished higher than ninth in any of the five seasons since and are 20th in La Liga with just two wins from their first 16 league games of the 2024-25 season.
Valencia’s head coach Ruben Baraja, appointed in February 2023, is the club’s 16th full-time boss since 2012. Despite the club’s position in the league table, Lay Hoon said there were no plans to part ways with Baraja.
(Top image: Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty Images)
