Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 9y

Lay Hoon insists Valencia is 'more than a business adventure' to Peter Lim

Incoming Valencia director Lay Hoon says the club's new owner Peter Lim plans to grow the international brand of the La Liga club, while plans for a new stadium are to again be rethought.

Monday's club EGM saw confirmation of a new Los Che board, with seven of its nine members have been brought to the club by Lim. Just two previous directors are remaining -- including president since June 2013 Amadeo Salvo, who helped shepherd through the controversial takeover.

Salvo had initially said the high-profile businessman would invest over 300 million euros in clearing the club's debts and helping complete its currently half-built new stadium. However after a long drawn-out process involving months of wrangling with publicly-owned lender Bankia, a deal was finally done in November which saw Lim invest only 22 million euros of his own money.

Meanwhile players owned by his investment fund Meriton, and represented by super-agent Jorge Mendes, had already been placed at the Mestalla club last summer.

In a speech to shareholders introducing Lim's personal and business background, his close associate Hoon said that the new regime was anxious to put in place its new project -- without giving many details of what that would involve.

"From today onwards Valencia football club will be our business's biggest treasure," she said. "Valencia is much more than a business adventure for Peter. Football is very, very much in his heart. And this conviction has brought us here today. The journey to get here has cost us much more than we originally wanted. But we have finally arrived and we are here for a long, long time. Now we are impatient to set off on the new project we have."

Giving the Liga club an international presence with a focus on the Asian market was an immediate objective, Hoon said, while also insisting that developing young players would be a priority.

"Our vision is to convert Valencia into an international club of which all valencianos and all the fans can be proud," she said. "We have fixed our view on competing at the highest level and to grow the international presence of the club, focusing immediately on the Asian market. Our priority is to build a competitive team with valenciano DNA, and to keep investing in our academy. It is there, at Paterna, where our future is."

Hoon suggested that completing the club's new stadium -- in which 98 million euros was invested until money ran out in February 2009 -- was a longer-term project.

"There are revised plans for the new Mestalla," she said. "We understand the need to take on this work as soon as possible. However, it is of supreme importance that we remove the pressure to finish it before having done an exhaustive study of the project. The plans for the new stadium were designed in 2006. Eight years have passed. We need to revise the plans to ensure they meet the needs of the club and the city. We must do all possible to resume this project and for the new stadium to have the spirit of the current Mestalla."

The original "Nou Mestalla" plan was for a 70,000-seater stadium costing 260 million euros to complete, however in November 2013 Salvo himself announced plans for a scaled down 60,000-seater stadium, which would cost around 200 million in total to build.

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