Real buy stake in crisis-hit Oviedo
Real Madrid have invested €100 000 in a capital increase launched by Real Oviedo as the struggling former top-flight club tries to raise cash to stay afloat.
Real director general Jose Angel Sanchez had informed Oviedo president Toni Fidalgo that the world's richest club by income, with annual earnings of more than €500 million, had decided to help out their Asturian rivals, Oviedo said in a statement on their website (www.realoviedo.es).
Oviedo were relegated from the first division in 2001 after a club-record 13 seasons in the top flight and dropped down to the Segunda B, or third tier, two years later.
Financial problems, including delays in wage payments to players, resulted in a further level for two seasons before they returned to Segunda B.
