Madrid - The purchase of Spanish Liga club Mallorca by British businessman Paul Davidson has raised eyebrows across Spain - and produced mixed feelings. Late on Thursday night Davidson reached an agreement with Mallorca president Vicente Grande to buy 90 per cent of the club's shares, for 38 million euros (52.87 million dollars).
It seems that Davidson wants Grande to continue as club president, on a salaried basis.
Grande has been club president since 2005, and has given Mallorca a certain stability, with wily coach Gregorio Manzano keeping the team well above the danger zone.
The islanders finished ninth last season and are currently in seventh place in the table.
Davidson - about whom little is know -appears determined to keep a low-profile, and to treat Mallorca as an investment rather than an obsession or a plaything.
Mallorca thus become the first Liga club to be owned and controlled by a foreigner, a fact which has caused some unease in Spain.
Concern was expressed on Radio Marca on Friday morning that Davidson might be just the first of a wave of foreign millionaires eager to buy up Liga clubs.
Rival radio station Cadena SER, for its part, asked the question whether it would be beneficial for La Liga to "go down the Premier League road" - ie many clubs being taken over by wealthy foreigners.
According to AS on Friday, former Newcastle United chairman Freddy Shepherd was also interested in buying Mallorca, but was only prepared to spend 10 million euros on the club.
The Abu Dhabi United Group, who recently completed the takeover of Manchester City, were also considering making a bid, according to media reports, as was Austrian businessman Dietrich Mateschitz.
Two other Liga clubs which might be ripe for take over are Betis and Deportivo Coruna, who dramatically eliminated Brann Bergen from the UEFA Cup on Thursday.
Veteran owner Manuel Ruiz de Lopera is keen to sell his Betis shares, the same as Deportivo counterpart Augusto Lendoiro, the man who transformed the Coruna club from second division no-hopers to Champions League aristocrats.
The only previous example of a foreign millionaire buying into La Liga is that of Dimitri Piterman, the larger-than-life Ukrainian-American magnate.
Piterman controversially tried to take over Racing Santander in 2003, only to be ignominously thrown out a year later. He then switched his attention to second division Alaves, but was driven out last year after massive fans' protests against him.
Piterman never managed to gain complete control over Santander and Alaves, to the relief of the fans.
Davidson will surely be more sophisticated and sensitive than Piterman, who infuriated players and coaches by forcing himself into the dressing-room - then insisted on sitting on the bench throughout the matches, shouting out banal instructions in broken Spanish.
