Interview with Eduardo Alvarez: a Real Madrid Socio for 24 years (Audio)

This week, The Circular is getting a taste of Spanish football.

Football is inarguably the most followed game in the world. The sport has an estimated four billion supporters worldwide and that number is growing.

There are certain teams and clubs that are jewels in the crown of this ‘Beautiful Game’. Real Madrid (pronounced: Ray-al Ma-dreed), are among the game’s most distinguished sides. The word ‘Real’ literally translates to royal from Spanish; in 1920 King Alfonso XIII of Spain bestowed them with the name.

The club has won numerous honours over its 117 years of existence; the best club of the 20th Century FIFA trophy, 13 Champions League trophies, 33 La Liga trophies, seven Club World Cup trophies and more.

Real Madrid is also a socio-owned club. ‘Socio’ means member in Spanish. Simply put, this means that instead of floating their shares on the stock market or raising capital through public or private investment, the club is owned by its members. Each socio has to pay €150 annual membership fee and as of 2018, there are approximately 92,500 socios at Real Madrid. (Reference: https://kryptoszene.de/aktien-kaufen/5G-aktien/)

Eduardo Alvarez is a Spanish football commentator for Ligafever and BBC Sportsworld, a contributor for ManagingMadrid and a Real Madrid socio since January 1995 i.e. 24 years. He very kindly agreed to share some of his valued opinions and thoughts as a socio of this iconic club.

Music credit:

• Look by KV https://www.soundcloud.com/kvmusicprod/ Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0 www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/CC_CHUwSBaw
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• Rain (ft. Enine) by JayJen Music https://soundcloud.com/jayjenmusic Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b… Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/9WNyE3_MkoM