Two decades ago, back in the 2000/01 season, Cádiz CF’s trials and tribulations almost saw the club disappear at the hands of certain individuals who became involved to make money - Rafael Mateo, Antonio Mendoza and also Masato Horita, from Japan. In the end the club fell into the hands of Antonio Muñoz and his group.
In that disastrous season, with the club under the control of Jerez businessman Antonio Mendoza, a thousand and one ways to find a solution to the clubs problem were considered, but never one that involved him putting his hand in his own pocket. To make matters worse in this soap opera, in desperation he brought in a new partner, the Japanese FIFA agent Masato Horita, manager of the Suisen Nippon business. The project that they presented upon arrival in Cádiz was fundamentally aimed at reforming the club and making commercial use of the lower parts of the Estadio Carranza. They claimed to have many millions to back their initiative to re-invigorate the club, but said they would only advance the plan once the local authorities backed the project. Apparently the money was tied up in a bond issued by a Luxembourg bank, which the Cádiz City Council found extremely unsettling. The Council said it would only provide its support when the club had paid the salaries owed to the players, something which never happened.
On the afternoon of 16 April 2001, the Cádiz CF headquarters, located in Cánovas del Castillo 21, was to be the scene of one of the most shameful chapters in the club’s history. The leaders of Suisen Nippon showed their supposed "love" for Cádiz and their intention to sink the club if in exchange for the club’s survival they did not make a profit.
Around seven thirty in the evening – taking advantage of the fact that the general director, Fran Canal, was in Madrid along with Antonio Muñoz and Jesús de Sobrino, the city councillor, to sign the contract for the sale of the majority shareholding to Rafael Mateo – the lawyer of the Japanese company and former secretary of the club's board of directors, Javier Ortega, from Granada, went to the club's headquarters. He was accompanied by a security guard and one another individual, and they arrived with the intention of obtaining various documents. Ortega urged the club's employees to give him the keys to the CEO's office, but when they refused the security guard forced the door open and they entered.
Upon seeing this, the employees notified the police of what was happening. Almost immediately a couple of police officers arrived at Cádiz HQ, and they tried to get Ortega to refrain from his attempts to get hold of the club documentation without any authorisation.
Miguel Iglesias, the club’s lawyer, also arrived at the scene and he too worked to prevent the documentation from leaving the Cádiz offices. Finally, the lawyer from Granada gave up on his initial plan, and looked instead to provide convincing arguments of the incident to the media that had by now gathered at the headquarters. Ortega argued that he was simply obeying orders from Masato Horita, who had sent him to obtain the necessary documentation to undertake an audit.
Despite the fact that the lawyer had given up on his attempts to secure the papers, another problem had now appeared. The news of the incident had quickly spread across the city and by nine o'clock about fifty Cádiz fans had gathered at the gates of the headquarters and were hurling abuse at the intruders.
The two police officers in attendance were forced to call for reinforcements. A police vehicle was sent to the offices and, after drawing up outside, Ortega and his companions were evacuated, with the most dramatic scenes of the entire evening. The crowd went for the raiders of Cádiz HQ, screaming all manner of insults in their direction, but the men escaped without suffering any physical harm.
After that, a couple of security guards were positioned at the club’s headquarters to protect the documents, with the echoes of a horrible evening still reverberating in the night air.
HISTORICAL NOTES_ by Juan Sevilla, Cádiz CF historian