Only a few hours have passed since Lionel Messi became the new owner of UE Cornellà, a fifth division Spanish club. Yet the media interest in the small Catalan club, which has never gone beyond the third division in its history, has already grown exponentially. To the point that the club’s Instagram account now has 593,000 followers, a figure higher than nine La Liga teams: Getafe (565,000), Espanyol (549,000), Mallorca (489,000), Elche (472,000), Osasuna (410,000), Real Oviedo (388,000), Rayo Vallecano (376,000), Levante (371,000), and Deportivo Alavés (240,000).
A few weeks ago, the same thing happened with Almería: the Andalusian team announced the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo as a co-owner and just a few hours later it was already the fifth most followed in Spain. The point is, however, that we are talking about a club that competes in Segunda División and has participated in several editions of La Liga, which is therefore at a significantly higher level than Cornellà. The latter has, in fact, been literally hit by a storm – positive, but still a storm – of notoriety that is quite difficult to manage. The players themselves and the coach, who had to deal with interviews they probably never thought they would have to do, explained that they are “in shock.” Also because they learned about Messi’s arrival “only through the media.”
The media, indeed: Marca has already produced a report directly from the Nou Municipal in Cornellà, the 1,500-seat stadium that hosts the team’s home games; the first match for Cornellà after the announcement regarding Messi brought in 15 accreditation requests from as many different outlets. Meanwhile, street vendors have already started printing green and white jerseys – the club’s colors – with the number 10 and Messi’s name on the back. From a sporting perspective, the arrival of the new ownership does not seem to have caused any major upheaval: the match against Grama ended 1-1, a result that allowed Cornellà to reduce the gap from the top of the standings (occupied by Manresa) to three points. There are three matches left in the season and in two weeks, the direct clash is scheduled. It’s easy to imagine that, on that day, Cornellà and Cornellà could enter the Spanish media agenda in case of victory and promotion. In fact, Messi’s arrival, at least initially, was supposed to lead precisely to this, to generate attention and participation. And it has gone exactly that way.