Antonio Hurtado, the Spanish emigrant who prevented the disappearance of Unión Berlin: “The club was very close to losing its license”

More than a hundred years of history are hidden behind the Berlin Union. It is currently touching the sky by competing in the Bundesliga and Champions League, but more than a decade ago, suffocated by the unfortunate economic situation and lacking structure, the German club was about to touch the hell of its disappearance. The relegation to the Fourth Division burned in Alten Försterei, but it did not burn, since a Spanish emigrant put it out in time. Antonio Hurtado (Puertollano, 1959) headed the Board of the German club for eight years, implementing an economic strategy that avoided bankruptcy, although he, modest, shares the success. “I think we were a group of saviors“, he clarifies during his conversation with Infobae Spain. This Tuesday, that club that flirted excessively with volatilization, receives the real Madrid in the highest European club competition, the Champions League.

The match is scheduled for the end of 2023, but Antonio glimpsed it on the first day he took office in 2004. “At a press conference they asked me ‘You who are starting this job now, what would you like to achieve with Unión Berlin.’ I told them that my dream would be to play at some point against Real Madrid and not in a friendly match, but in a competitive match. “They called me crazy,” explains Antonio, who came to preside over the Berlin Board after emigrating to Germany in 1972, at the age of 13. “I didn’t want to leave, my parents forced me“, account. He landed in Ludwigsburg, where he began his studies.

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“I finished school, studied to be a draftsman and then entered university. I did an Engineering degree and went to work in Mönchengladbach until they called me from the University of Ludwigsburg to start a doctorate. Two years later I moved to Aachen, on the border with Belgium, to do a postdoctoral degree, and later to a company in Dresden, Saxony, where I worked on technical plant development. From there I got the opportunity to go to Berlin to a state waste management company in 1999.” Two years later, through this last company, he had his first contact with Unión Berlin. “The company he worked for was also dedicated to supporting Unión Berlin in education, children’s, and youth teams,” he recalls. “I was tasked with carrying out commercial negotiations with the club and they accepted that he be a member of the control assembly. Then there were elections and I was elected as head.”

“The club was very close to losing its license. It was chaos. That’s how it was. We wonder what the board of directors of this club had done in previous years taking into account that Unión Berlin played in the German Cup final in 2001 and later participated in some European competitions. And I don’t know what was done at that time and why a strategy for the future was not taken into account to be able to support the entire organization of the club with those financial sources.”

“At that time we developed a strategy that consisted of uniting companies, political parties, partners, team fans… and thus we began to create a new club profile with very special values, in my opinion, making the fans understand members who are the owners of the club. We also avoided spending and pawning more money than we had available,” he details. “I am not referring to strategies that are so difficult to understand, but rather easy to practice., but sometimes it is the easy thing that causes problems,” he emphasizes. “We have carried it out to the letter for many years. At least the eight that I was in the club and with great pride I can say that yes, those who continued in responsibility have carried it forward in a similar way. Now it is a healthy club, in the economic, mental and intercultural sense. A club that is worth what it weighs.”

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Years later he began the renovation of the stadium with the help of his partners and when the last stand was finished, Antonio stepped aside. “After five years as head of the club, it came to me an offer to be a professor at the University of Dresden and be part of the Energy Institute. And three years later I decided to finish my work at the Unión because I could not carry out two tasks of such magnitude in parallel. We left the future prepared and what those in charge did next have been wonderful,” he analyzes.

More than a decade after his departure, Antonio maintains his seat at Alten Försterei and his idea of ​​“not spending more than what we have available” remains intact in the club that tonight faces the real Madrid in search of a victory that will allow them to secure third place in the group and therefore the Europa League. The clash, due to UEFA regulations with seating, will be played at the Berlin Olympic Stadium, home of Hertha, Union’s rival. Antonio Hurtado will be present there, as in the first leg, after having shared a table with Florentino Pérez at the board of directors’ lunch. “A dream” of which he and all the fans Eisernen They don’t want to wake up.