The 4,036-seat stadium Messi is about to own in Alicante

A hundred years ago, a group of homesick Barcelona supporters in a small Alicante shoe-making town founded a football club and dressed it in Barça’s own blue and garnet. Now the most famous player ever to wear that shirt is preparing to buy it outright.

Messi’s deal for Eldense

Lionel Messi has reached an agreement to buy Club Deportivo Eldense (CD Eldense), a club in Segunda División, Spanish football’s second division, based in the Alicante town of Elda, according to a statement released by the club on Tuesday September 9. The deal would see Messi take on 100 per cent of the shares currently held by TH Soluciones Group, a Colombian investment group that bought the club less than a year ago. 

Eldense said in its statement that the sale is not yet final. It still needs to complete due diligence and receive authorisation from Spain’s Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD), the government body that vets changes of ownership at professional clubs. No purchase price has been made public, and the club said the process was expected to be completed in the coming days.

Why an Alicante club plays in Barcelona’s own colours

CD Eldense was founded on September 17, 1921, by a group of local Barcelona supporters known as Los Cabezotas. They modelled the new club on their favourite team down to the blue and garnet strip, and more than a century later Eldense is still known as the decano, the oldest senior football club in Alicante province.

The club has spent most of its history outside the professional divisions, playing at the modest Estadio Municipal Nuevo Pepico Amat, which holds just 4,036 spectators. Home games there have included visits from Barcelona, Valencia and Real Sociedad in recent Copa del Rey rounds, giving a club of Eldense’s size a rare taste of facing some of Spain’s biggest names.

A relegation battle just as the takeover was announced

The timing is awkward on the pitch. Eldense currently sit 20th in Segunda División, in the relegation zone, with two points from their opening four matches of the season, and have already sacked their head coach. The team only returned to the second tier by winning the third tier, Primera Federación, as champions last season, having been relegated the year before.

Ownership at the club has also been in flux. TH Soluciones Group, led by the Colombian businessman Juan Carlos Trujillo, bought Eldense less than a year ago and installed Carolina Holguín Tafur as the club’s first female president. Under a Messi takeover, that spell in charge would end almost as quickly as it started.

Why Elda’s mayor called the news ‘spectacular’

Elda’s mayor, Rubén Alfaro, confirmed there was a principle of agreement and welcomed the interest from one of football’s biggest names. “The fact that a figure like Leo Messi focuses on us is spectacular news,” he said, while urging residents to treat the deal with caution until it is formally signed off. 

Elda is a town of just above 55,000 people best known for its shoe factories and leather industry, and its council has provided financial support to the football club for the past 12 years. A takeover by Messi would put the town’s name in front of an audience most local businesses could never otherwise reach.

How Eldense fits into Messi’s growing collection of clubs

Eldense would not be Messi’s first foray into club ownership, but it would be by far his most significant in Spain. He bought UE Cornellà, a club in Spain’s fifth tier, in April 2026, and is also expected to take an equity stake in Inter Miami, where he still plays, once his contract there ends.

He also holds interests in Deportivo LSM in Uruguay, alongside his former Barcelona team-mate Luis Suárez, and in Leones de Rosario, an Argentine project run by his brother. Eldense, a professional second-tier club with more than a century of history, would be a considerably bigger prize than any of them.