Cadiz owner to Football Espana – ‘The objective is promotion’

It has been an impressive start to the campaign for Cadiz, who sit third in the Segunda. After kicking off the season with victories against Mirandes and Albacete and a draw at Leganes. Drawing 3-3 at Real Sociedad B, 1-0 wins against Eibar and Malaga followed, before a miserly a goalless stalemate at AD Ceuta. And whilst Cadiz’s undefeated start came to an end three games ago, they nevertheless find themselves in contention for promotion.

There are plenty of factors behind Cadiz’s positive start, from Bojan Kovacevic and Iker Recio’s stalwart pairing at the back, to Youssouf Diarra’s relentless running in midfield, to Victor Wehbi Aznar Ussen’s cat-like reflexes in goal. Behind the scenes, though, one player who has helped to oversee their progress is Ben Harburg.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Harburg spent his childhood in a number of different places from Michigan to Switzerland to Egypt. However, it was during his time in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain, that he fell in love with football after attending a Cadiz match in 1997. Harburg spent the following quarter-century making his name in the finance world as a Managing Partner at MSA Capital, a global investment firm with over €1.72b ($2b) in assets under management. Eventually, he decided he wanted to splash his cash in the sports world after watching the Netflix series Sunderland ‘Til I Die.

“What inspired me to get into football ownership was a few things,” stated Harburg in an exclusive Football España interview. “Like all of us during COVID, I was locked away at home and really struggling for outlets, and I was watching Sunderland ‘Til Die, which I think is one of the best TV shows. I thought was really fascinating to see behind the hood of a club and all the pain and the ups and downs of club ownership, what goes into a great club falling on hard times, what it’s like from an owner perspective, the kit man perspective, the fan perspective, the local pastor at the church perspective.”

“They deeply exposed every possible angle, and I think that really inspired me to look harder into football ownership and think about it, rather than being a fan. I’m proud to say, I used to be a complete sports junkie, I’d follow every college football game, basketball game, NFL game, I could tell you 90% of the players in the NFL draft, where they went to college, I I’ve erased all of that from my phone and from my mind, and I just put all my energy into soccer, which has been really fun.”

Harburg decided to commence his sports ownership journey in Spain, the same place where he became enamoured with the beautiful game. He took a look at all of the 80 clubs in Spain’s top three divisions, plugging them into an Excel spreadsheet and analysing key metrics like the size of the city, the size of the stadium, the size of the fan base, the GDP per capita in the city, any legal issues, the true value of the club vs. the future value. Eventually, he found that Cadiz was the best value purchase out of all of these teams. It’s why, on October 29, 2021, Harburg became a shareholder and observer on Cadiz’s Board of Directors after purchasing a 6.5% stake in the club.

Cadiz had only just returned to the top-flight for the first time since 2006, finishing 12th in their return to La Liga. The following year, meanwhile, would see them finish 17th in the 2021/22 season, avoiding relegation by a point. But despite narrowly staving off the drop, Cadiz established themselves as the giant killers of Spain after holding Real Madrid and Barcelona to goalless draws. And despite losing their first five matches, Cadiz would end up finishing 14th in the 2022/23 season, beating the likes of Real Betis and Atletico Madrid along the way. However, their magical carriage turned into a pumpkin in 2023/24, with Cadiz placing 18th and suffering relegation to the second tier.

“Relegation isn’t the end of the world,” added Harburg. “If you get relegated in Spain out of the second division, it’s doomsday. But as long as you’re in the first two tiers of Spanish football, you’re okay in the sense that there’s still a lot of league-level support, you can still essentially break even and get exposure to TV contracts, you can watch some of our games on ESPN+ in America. There are some leagues where, once you get outside the first division, you lose all global TV access, and there are even some leagues where the first division doesn’t get global TV access like in Greece.”

Mejor afición del mundo https://t.co/uqVaeq0VAg

— Ben Harburg (@BenHarburg) February 15, 2025

“If you get promoted back to LaLiga, like, your revenue goes up, but also your costs go up, so you can actually achieve similar levels of profitability in one league versus the other. So really, getting relegated from LaLiga just means that the equity value of the club is lower, which is okay, because I bought it at a second-division equity value; it’s just exposure. In the first division, you’re going to play away at Santiago Bernabeu and Camp Nou, but ironically, in Spain, we’ve got monster clubs like Deportivo de la Coruna, Malaga, Almeria, Granada and Racing Santander playing in the second division.”

“These are big, big clubs that historically have played a lot more seasons than us in the first division, so it’s actually not a farm league. It’s not like in the USL or something. It’s a pretty solid, competitive base, and a lot of really tough teams. It’s a really hard league to get promoted out of, so that’s kind of what the experience has been like.”

Following a dismal 15th-place finish in their return to the second division, Cadiz are challenging for promotion under ex-Athletic Club manager Gaizka Garitano. They sit third in the table, one point behind first-place Racing.

Sin palabras

Gracias por el apoyo 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 de hoy

Volveremos más fuertes, no lo dudéis 💛 pic.twitter.com/GmxHeEmMeC

— Cádiz Club de Fútbol (@Cadiz_CF) October 20, 2025

“It feels like we’re now finally on the right track. We’ve cleared out a lot of the deadwood, and we’ve got now a young, hungry team. We can continue to add pieces to it and continue to clean out a little bit more, but I think, obviously the objective there is very clear, it’s promotion. I don’t know if this is our season to get promoted, or if we still maybe need another one or two years to kind of really put ourselves in.”

“Promotion’s a funny thing where usually one or two clubs clearly deserve promotion, and we’re sitting at the automatic promotion slots, and then, maybe someone else sneaks through random happenstance in the playoffs. When we got promoted to the La Liga last time, we did so through the direct promotion slots. It felt like a very clear, systematic kind of process, and so I think we’d like to be there, but if we could sneak in the back door, we’ll take it. But that’s the objective. There’s no other bar in the second division.”