Open letter to the directors of Cadena Ser

Valencia CF sent the following letter to the directors of Spanish radio station 'Cadena SER' on Tuesday, September 24th:

Dear Mr. Gavela,

Valencia CF have the utmost respect for the freedom of information and opinion enjoyed by ever media outlet in their coverage of matters relating to our club. However, we cannot turn a blind eye to a frenzied smear campaign, based on personal animosity, that one Cadena SER journalist is attempting in vain to lead. This journalist has already had measures taken against him by his employers for 'discrediting actions' which breached "the code of ethics of the SER style guide, and the principles and values of Grupo Prisa's code of ethics."

The aforementioned journalist, who has disrespected Valencia CF directors, players, former coaches and employees on more than one occasion, continues to attempt to take advantage of the impact of his reputable news outlet to go beyond his function of informing and opining, instead attempting to become a form of activist whose main task is to orchestrate a personal campaign of bullying and overthrowal. Such behaviour is explicitly forbidden in the Cadena SER style guide. The naive objective of his behaviour, in name of the supposed benefit of Valencian fans and himself, is to pressure the club's majority shareholder into selling his stake.

Amongst other methods (such as encouraging the questioning in the street of VCF board members who live in the city), he attempts to generate 'trolling' on social media and traffic for stories that are clearly biased and distorted to Asian media outlets, with the aim of dirtying the image and good reputation of the club, its president -by whom he feels persecuted- and its majority shareholder. He blames them for the current procedures against him by his own media outlet for his displays of disrespect.

Said personal campaign, besides calling for direct pressure to be put on those responsible for the club in Valencia, with the puerile objective of obliging the majority shareholder to sell his shares, appears to be unaffected by whether results on the pitch are good or bad at any given moment, as after the win against Chelsea he had several words of depreciation for the message given by the club captain. He accused him of lacking 'manhood,' as well as levelling false accusations against those in charge of Valencia CF, alleging that they had created fake social media accounts to improve the image of the majority shareholder.

In response to this matter, we are making a formal complaint, reserving our legal right to take action in the defence of Valencia CF's interests. We hope that the aforementioned personal smear campaign does not damage the good reputation of as historic and important a media outlet as Cadena Ser.

Kind regards,

Anil K. Murthy,

President, Valencia CF