Change in the air in Sevilla?
On December 16 1932, the empresario Eduardo Pagés signed a contract with la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla to manage the city’s prestigious bullring. The Pagés family (now in the form of Ramón Valencia, husband of Eduardo’s granddaughter) have been running La Maestranza ever since.
Over the course of those 88 years, the maestrantes have been largely content to stay in the background and maintain a low profile, happy to let the empresa organise the plaza’s temporadas, enjoying their perks as the ring’s owners and putting the bulk of the empresa’s income which is required to be paid over to them (currently 22% of takings) to social use.
At the weekend, however, in the pages of El País, the maestrante with lead responsibility for the bullring, Luis Manuel Halcón, revealed that the two parties are currently in dispute. Valencia is arguing that la Real Maestranza should not be permitted to include monies he collects for IVA (VAT) payments in the 22% calculation and is seeking reimbursement of some 6 million euros paid over to the maestrantes since 2002. The maestrantes claim that the basis of the 22% was clear in the 2002 contract that Pagés chose to sign and was carried forward in the contract renewal that took place in 2011. The matter is now in the courts.
“Very few maestrantes understand why we are trying to maintain cordial relations [with the empresa] despite this,” says Halcón. The current contract is due for renewal in 2025. “I can’t say what will happen at that point because everything is changing… Will the empresa want to renew the contract then or will it have other important objectives in mind? Will la Real Maestranza want to continue with this arrangement after this awful experience with a family that’s sued us after repeatedly expressing their satisfaction for 88 years?"
If the management model is changed, it seems the maestrantes do not envisage a lowering of seat prices in what is possibly Spain’s most expensive arena. Told that the empresa has voiced complaints about the ring’s rental, saying it’s the highest in Spain, Halcón responds, “You should ask him, then, why he pays it. I think the Real Maestranza is a very comfortable proposition, given it does not intervene in the management and this is the most profitable plaza de temporada of all that exist.”
One wonders whether the financial consequences for Pagés of the absence of a 2020 temporada in Sevilla because of coronavirus are the reason for the dispute emerging now. Halcón makes the point that the empresa is obliged to put on festejos unless they are prohibited by the authorities or are impossible because of the weather. Ramón Valencia has said that this year’s announced carteles will only go ahead if the authorities permit at least 50% attendance at the ring. What position will Pagés be left in contractually if the authorities do not prohibit the festejos, but stipulate a lower maximum attendance figure?