Financial services company Abanca has reached an agreement for the naming rights of Deportivo La Coruña’s home stadium as part of a wide-ranging partnership with the Spanish LaLiga football club.
Abanca, an existing sponsor of Deportivo, has provided the club with €45m ($51m), which will allow the team to cancel its privileged debt with Spain’s Inland Revenue and restructure its financial affairs.
The funding will allow Deportivo’s planned renovation of the Estadio Riazor (pictured) to go ahead. The venue will also take on the new name of the Estadio Abanca-Riazor as part of the agreement. The eight-year naming-rights contract will run until 2025.
The Estadio Riazor project will see the stadium’s roof renovated, with the venue’s lighting and façade to also be revamped. Improved accessibility and an advanced technological innovation system will also form part of the renovation.
Deportivo said the partnership has a 15-year treasury plan associated with it, a move designed to ease the club’s annual financial burdens. The agreement will also allow Deportivo to raise its salary cap and spend more money on players in the transfer market.
Abanca’s chairman, Juan Carlos Escotet Rodríguez, said: “We are aware that supporting Deportivo also strengthens our relationship with its fans around the world. This agreement will give the club the economic muscle to perform the operations it needs.”
Deportivo finished the 2016-17 LaLiga season in 16th place.