Zaragoza’s temporada up in the air
The trouble started in January as soon as Zaragoza’s Diputación issued its tender for provision of bullfights in La Misericordia. Actually, before then, as many commentators worried its late publication would put April’s Feria de San Jorge in jeopardy. Now, after a drawn-out battle between the Diputación and bullfight empresas, it looks likely that corridas in Zaragoza next month will not happen, while questionmarks hover over October’s Feria del Pilar much like the awning that shadows the city’s bullring.
The Diputación’s tender - intended to be in force for the next three temporadas, with the option of a further one-year extension - set a minimum income figure of 200, 177 euros per annum (a significant increase on the previous canon); restricted bidders to those who have run at least one first class plaza in at least two of the last four full years, or empresas who have organized a minimum of 25 bullfights per year in first or second class plazas in three of the last five years; and required the carteles for this year’s ferias of San Jorge and El Pilar to be set out and committed to by the tender submission deadline of mid-February.
The empresas’ grouping, La Asociación Nacional de Organizadores de Espectáculos Taurinos (ANOET), convened an emergency meeting of its Board of Directors to discuss the tender, after which it issued a statement saying that it considered the tender "unacceptable, in that it requires companies that decide to tender to have commitments with the toreros and ganaderías that will perform at the ferias, which can violate and distort free competition, as well as to define the exact date on which each of them will appear. It’s a measure that limits the freedom of empresarios when scheduling a feria and prevents the inclusion of the season’s new triunfadores […] We consider that this requirement of the specifications, which is a cause for termination of the contract, jeopardises the empresa for the entire season, and may harm the rights of the spectators.”
ANOET’s President, Rafael Garrido of Nautalia, backed by eight other members of ANOET, subsequently filed an appeal on the grounds that the tender specification was “contrary to law", but the Diputación rejected the claim. Two further appeals were submitted, one by the Valdemorillo empresa, Víctor Zabala de la Serna, and the other by Alberto García of Tauroemoción, both calling for the tender exercise to be suspended.
Under the tender conditions, only Rafael Garrido, Simón Casas, José María Garzón, BMF, Carlos Zúñiga Sr., Juan Bautista and Ramón Valencia appeared eligible to compete for the plaza, but, given ANOET’s stance, it was thought unlikely that any empresa would tender. However, the opportunity for Ramón Valencia and the Pagés family (recently expelled from Sevilla) to continue as an important bullring empresa could not be passed by, and so Valencia teamed up with Casa Matilla and made a submission. Surprisingly, a second submission was also received from Tauroemoción despite the company’s reservations about the exercise.
Despite the appeals, La Diputación de Zaragoza said it would press on with the tender considerations. This took the form of three phased examinations of documentation - first, the bidder’s eligibility and legal standing; second, the ferias’ programming; and third, the financial offer. When the second stage was reached, it was discovered that Tauroemoción (who somehow passed the first stage, perhaps because of their recent acquisition of Málaga’s bullring) had opted not to provide any feria details, leaving Valencia’s and Matilla’s Unión Temporal de Empresas (UTE) as the sole bidder.
Then, on March 18, before the third envelope with the UTE’s financial offering was opened, the Tribunal Administrativo de Contratos Públicos de Aragón - having earlier rejected Zabala’s and García’s calls for a suspension of the process (but not their appeal grounds) - issued a judgement on the two empresas’ appeals which upheld the view that the tender was illegal, the Tribunal concluding that the exercise should be declared null and void. The tender contract had been drawn up as a lease agreement, rather than a service agreement, and the Tribunal’s view was that new specifications were needed that were legally watertight and guaranteed free competition and transparency.
Now, Zaragoza’s Diputación is to appeal the Tribunal’s decision. The Diputación’s President, Juan Antonio Sánchez Quero, has warned that the Tribunal’s decision makes it impossible to hold April’s Feria de San Jorge and has said that the responsibility "falls solely and exclusively on the group of empresarios who have presented a plethora of appeals in all possible administrative instances attacking the specifications […] I have the impression that there is interest on the part of a bullfighting empresario in the award of the Misericordia bullring being boycotted. With these businessmen, there is no need for there to be antitaurinos - they themselves are destroying the feria for their personal economic interest […] It’s our understanding that the model of a property lease contract is legally correct and is consolidated and endorsed by practice. It is essentially identical to the one used in the previous tender for the Plaza de la Misericordia, and it is neither new nor exceptional, since it is the same model used by other public administrations that own bullrings as important as those of Valencia, Bilbao or Santander, and also in many other locations such as Cuenca, Colmenar Viejo, Manzanares, Olite or Sanlúcar de Barrameda."
The UTE’s proposals for the Feria del Pilar
The taurine press has generally championed the views of the empresas. However, leaving aside for the moment ANOET’s view that Zaragoza’s tender differs from those of other first class plazas in being essentially concerned about the income for the owning authority rather than the quality of the taurine offer, including assistance to local escuelas taurinas, it is somewhat ironic that a main argument of the empresas has been against the February commitment to carteles for the October Feria del Pilar when the norm now is for the leading feria carteles to be more or less finalised prior to each temporada commencing. The Zaragoza public is used to El Pilar not featuring toreros who have come through during the course of the year - last year, for example, Aarón Palacio, despite being a zaragozano, was a notable absentee from the feria carteles.
What’s more, even though Andrés Roca Rey and Juan Ortega (the latter managed by José Luis Garzón) declined to make any commitment to appear in La Misericordia, the UTE’s proposed programme produced a far better Feria del Pilar on paper in terms of toreros - less so with the ganaderías - than has been the case for several years, the feria traditionally suffering from its happening so late in the season:
Sábado, 10 de octubre: Toros de Juan Pedro Domecq para Diego Urdiales, Sebastián Castella y Pablo Aguado
Domingo, 11 de octubre: Toros de Hermanos García Jiménez-Olga Jiménez para Morante de la Puebla, José María Manzanares y Aarón Palacio
Lunes, 12 de octubre: Toros de La Quinta para Ginés Marín, Fernando Adrián y Jorge Isiegas
Miércoles, 14 de octubre: Novillos de Fermín Bohórquez para Ignacio Boné, Mario Vilau y Julio Méndez
Jueves, 15 de octubre: Toros de Victoriano del Río-Toros de Cortés para Daniel Luque, Borja Jiménez y Emilio de Justo
Viernes, 16 de octubre: Toros de Fuente Ymbro para Miguel Ángel Perera, Tomás Rufo y Cristiano Torres
Sábado, 17 de octubre: Toros de Álvaro Núñez para Morante de la Puebla, Alejandro Talavante y Javier Zulueta
Domingo, 18 de octubre: Toros de Herederos de Ángel Sánchez y Sánchez para Rui Fernandes, Diego Ventura y Lea Vicens.
Of course, Valencia and Matilla may have decided to play all their best cards in Year One of the contract, the financial conditions and their offer perhaps making for less impressive programming in 2027 and 2028. That remains to be seen, as indeed is whether the tender is allowed to proceed after all.
As for next month’s Feria de San Jorge, former matador Raúl Gracia El Tato has now asked the Diputación whether he can hire La Misericordia on April 23 and put on an all-zaragozano corrida featuring Aarón Palacio, Cristiano Torres and the alternativa of Iker Fernández El Mene (see my article ‘Mene are called but few are chosen’).