Unión finances, from 2019 books to big-money sales and debt to president | OneFootball

The economic and accounting situation of Club Atlético Unión reopens, with each presentation of financial statements, a recurring dilemma within the political and institutional landscape of the red-and-white entity: how the volume of income generated by the sale of footballers aligns with the liabilities the club still holds with the family of president Luis Spahn.

The history of this dispute reached its breaking point at the turbulent extraordinary assembly in August 2019. At that meeting, the club’s leadership formally disclosed a debt in favor of the Spahn family totaling 5,550,073 dollars. The revelation of that amount had an immediate impact, since the figure had not appeared clearly or itemized in the financial statements presented in previous years. The controversy led to filings before the General Inspectorate of Legal Entities, complaints in court, sharp clashes among the different opposition groups, and demands for an external accounting audit to shed light on the movement of funds.

At the same time as that conflict, the ‘Tate’ went through one of the most significant player-transfer cycles in its history between 2019 and 2026. According to institutional reports and transaction sheets published by the club, income from sales with officially confirmed amounts reached 35,326,875 dollars, a figure that rises to 35,726,875 dollars if the minimum guarantee included in Rafael Profini’s transfer to Ukrainian football is taken into account. If market estimates are added for those transfers whose amounts were not officially disclosed by the leadership — such as the cases of Diego Barisone, Enrique Triverio, Víctor Ignacio Malcorra, Rolando García Guerreño, or Yeimar Gómez Andrade — the total gross amount generated by the club’s footballing assets comes close to 43.2 million dollars.

Despite the massive inflow of economic resources, the debt claimed by the leadership was not automatically or fully settled. The discrepancy over the current balance lies in financial recording criteria and the national economic context. On one hand, the Board of Directors has argued that much of the original liability was converted into pesos, refinanced, and gradually absorbed within the frameworks governing accounting submissions to the Argentine Football Association and oversight bodies, which turned the foreign-currency obligation into nominal peso values.

On the other hand, opposition figures have pointed out, in their analysis of the most recent financial statements, that the debts recorded in the names of relatives and companies linked to the president — mainly in the name of Paula Spahn — still appear with balances ranging between 1.4 and 1.5 billion pesos, which would represent a remainder of close to one and a half million dollars according to the exchange rates in force in the financial market.

This picture is compounded by the dynamics of the transfer market itself. Although the gross figures agreed for the departures of players such as Juan Ignacio Nardoni, Kevin Zenón, Imanol Machuca, Mateo Del Blanco, or Profini himself represent high amounts, the club’s actual cash flow is not received in a single payment. Most deals are structured in annual installments spread over time, and legal tax percentages, intermediary commissions, players’ shares, and unforeseen issues arising from exchange controls on the entry of foreign currency from abroad must also be deducted.

Although the original 5.5 million dollar liability underwent transformations and amortizations that considerably reduced its real weight relative to the total volume of money generated over the last decade, the absence of a definitive settlement or an audited liquidation capable of winning consensus from all sides keeps open a debate that goes beyond strictly accounting matters and stands as a central issue in Unión’s political debate.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.