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November 11, 2025

Under Ron DeSantis’ leadership, Florida leads the nation in executions in 2025

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

Florida has executed 15 prisoners in 2025 so far, with two more executions scheduled for November. MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

After years of steady decline in the number of people executed in the United States, there has been a sharp reversal in 2025.

So far this year, 41 people have been killed in 11 states, with five more executions scheduled before the end of the year.

If all the scheduled executions are carried out, that would make 2025 the year with the most executions since 2010, when 46 inmates were put to death. That year, Texas led the way with 17 executions, while Florida carried out only one.

But this year, the Sunshine State is leading the charge. Florida has executed 15 prisoners in 2025 – the most ever in a single year since 1976, when a brief national moratorium on the death penalty was lifted. Two of the five remaining executions scheduled for 2025 are set to happen in Florida. Texas and Alabama are tied for a distant second, with five executions each.

As someone who has studied the death penalty for decades, what is happening in Florida right now seems to me to be especially important. While in some ways the state is distinctive, in many others it is a microcosm of America’s death penalty system.

The history of the death penalty in Florida

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Florida carried out its first execution in 1827, 18 years before it became a state.

Almost 100 years later, in 1923, Florida replaced hanging with the electric chair as its method of execution. After a brief pause in the use of capital punishment in the 1970s, it was one of the first states to get back in the death penalty business.

In the 1990s, the state had several gruesome botched electrocutions. In three cases, the condemned man caught on fire before dying in the chair. To this day, the electric chair remains legal in Florida, though in 2000 the state Legislature enacted a law whereby prisoners may choose between the electric chair and lethal injection.

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the state to task for various constitutional defects in its death penalty laws and practices. In its 1982 decision in Enmund v. Florida, the court ruled that Florida could not use the death penalty to punish people who were minor participants in a crime that led to a murder. And in 2014, the Supreme Court found that Florida was unconstitutionally denying the kind of intellectual disability claims by people with low IQ scores that made them ineligible to be given death sentences.

But these rulings have not stopped the state from continuing to go its own way in death penalty cases. In 2020, the Florida Supreme Court ended the practice of having a court review capital sentences. This review was meant to ensure that those sentences met the U.S. Constitution’s requirements that they be meted out only in cases that truly warrant them and that they be proportional. To determine proportionality, the court undertaking such a review would compare the case in front of them with similar cases in the same jurisdiction in which the death penalty had been imposed.

Then in 2023, Florida enacted legislation ending the requirement of jury unanimity in death cases. Now, it takes only eight out of 12 jurors to send someone to death row. Only three other death penalty states do not require jury unanimity. In Missouri and Indiana, a judge may decide if the jury’s decision isn’t unanimous, and in Alabama, a 10-2 decision is sufficient.

Racial inequality on death row

As in the rest of the country, racial discrimination has long been a feature of Florida’s death penalty system.

Thirty-five percent of the 278 people currently on Florida’s death row are Black. But Black people make up only about 17% of Florida’s overall population.

This is actually lower than the approximately 40% of inmates on death row who are Black nationwide, despite the fact that Black people make up just 14% of the U.S. population.

Across the nation, 13 of the 41 inmates executed so far in 2025 have been Black or Latino men.

Florida leads the nation in the number of people – 30 – who have been sentenced to death only to be exonerated later. Of those, 57% were Black.

A record-setting year

Today, Florida has the second-largest death row population in the United States, with 256 inmates awaiting executions. Only California has more, with 580 inmates on death row, but it has had a moratorium on executions since 2006.

As Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis is responsible for issuing death warrants. In 2025, he has signed a record-setting 15 so far. That’s the most death warrants in the state in a single year since 2014, when Gov. Rick Scott signed off on putting eight people to death.

Though he is Catholic, DeSantis does not subscribe to the church’s staunch opposition to the death penalty. The Florida Catholic Conference of Bishops has been outspoken in taking him to task for his position on capital punishment and for presiding over an execution spree. But that has not stopped him.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis standing on stage in front of a crowd of thousands — Critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen here speaking during the 2024 Republican National Convention, allege that his record-setting number of executions in 2025 is a bid for attention on the national political stage.
Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Indeed, on Nov. 3, 2025, the governor said that capital punishment is “an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders.” He added that it could be a “strong deterrent” if the state carried out executions more quickly.

DeSantis has served as governor since 2019, and prior to 2025, he had signed nine death warrants. He says that he was focused on other priorities early in his term and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The governor, who is term limited, is in his second and last term. DeSantis’ critics allege that the recent uptick in executions is an attempt to garner attention and prove his tough-on-crime bona fides to a national audience.

Florida: Setting the trend, or bucking it?

The total number of executions in the U.S. went from a high of 98 executions in 1999 to a low of 11 in 2021. But that number has increased every year since.

While only one state, Indiana, has resumed executions after a long hiatus, no other state has increased its use of the death penalty as quickly as Florida has. Elsewhere, the common pattern of allowing people to languish on death row for decades, and in some states seemingly permanently, has held.

And although the problems that have long plagued Florida’s death penalty system remain unaddressed, it now stands alone in dramatically escalating its own pace of executions and is leading America to its own 2025 execution revival.

Read more stories from The Conversation about Florida.

Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Under Ron DeSantis’ leadership, Florida leads the nation in executions in 2025 – https://theconversation.com/under-ron-desantis-leadership-florida-leads-the-nation-in-executions-in-2025-269125

November 11, 2025

David Szalay’s Flesh wins the Booker prize – a deeply affecting novel about masculinity

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tory Young, Associate Professor in Department of English Literature, Anglia Ruskin University

Canadian-born, Hungarian-British writer David Szalay has won the Booker prize for his novel, Flesh. It follows the eventful life of one Hungarian, István, from his teen years to middle age.

The novel begins when István, aged 15, and his mother move to a new town – “it’s not an easy age to do that”. Although he struggles to make friends, he hangs out with “another solitary individual” who asks him if he’s “ever done it”. This new friend sets him up with “a girl” but nothing happens. István is confused by this and his blank passivity sets the tone for the novel and his life.

Within only a few pages, an older woman neighbour for whom he’s undertaking chores at the behest of his mother, grooms him into a sexual relationship. It ends in tragedy when he falls in love with her and pushes her husband down the stairs, to his death.

Put crudely, István is motivated by sex and acts with violence. But this misrepresents the novel and its power. Rather than presenting a cliché of brute manhood, Szalay portrays a man who is simply responsive to the world around him. István’s emotions and tragedies are often left out of the third-person storytelling, as if they cannot be explained. Other men in the novel are equally uncommunicative.

It’s a propulsive novel that’s quite quick to read because sparse dialogue is interspersed with István’s blank thoughts. He responds to declarations of love and desire with a mere “OK” or acknowledgement that: “He hadn’t actually known what he was about to say.” This is what is so singular about the storytelling of Flesh; it is spare rather than voluptuous, trimmed to the bone rather than fleshy.

There are jumps between chapters. We don’t hear about István’s time in a young offenders’ institution or anything at all about his father, for example. But we learn during an exit interview from the army that he’s “a brave man” and it’s clear that he is attractive to women, who perhaps perceive his taciturnity as masculine. We don’t hear what they think either.

David Szalay wins the Booker prize 2025.

Flesh wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test – a criteria for films that stipulates they should feature at least two named women who have a conversation about something other than a man. The novel is entirely focused on István’s point of view and all the women, apart from his mother, are those he chances upon – other men’s wives, the nanny employed by the family he works for – and then has a sexual relationship with. Sex comes his way; women try and fail to get him to talk.

Good fortune arrives along with the tragedies. István moves to London, working as a bouncer until, in another chance encounter and moment of fearlessness, he helps a man who wishes to repay this act. He offers to employ him in his private security agency. Like the women in the novel, men are also eager to exploit István’s physicality. This man grooms him for “higher-end work”, by paying for expensive suits and the necessary training courses, which István finds populated half by “foreigners, mainly from Eastern Europe”. It’s the start of his ascent into wealthy, sometimes corrupt, London society.

“Flesh” then refers to the way István is seen, as only a body, a member of the new working classes whose lives are defined by precarity. Kept outside, overhearing only his bare responses – “OK” – readers become complicit in this failure to consider all that man is. And it is precisely this innovative, spare narration that makes the novel so deeply affecting.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Tory Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. David Szalay’s Flesh wins the Booker prize – a deeply affecting novel about masculinity – https://theconversation.com/david-szalays-flesh-wins-the-booker-prize-a-deeply-affecting-novel-about-masculinity-269523

November 11, 2025

Anatomie d’un effort, ou comment déjouer notre tendance à la paresse pour bouger plus

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Boris Cheval, Associate professor, École normale supérieure de Rennes

On entend souvent dire que l’effort est perçu comme désagréable, chacun étant enclin à céder aux sirènes du moindre effort. Mais alors, comment expliquer que tant de personnes se lancent, par exemple, dans des marathons, en dépit de l’effort évident qu’implique cette activité physique ? En décryptant les trois phases de l’effort (avant, pendant et après), nous pouvons lutter contre notre tendance naturelle à la paresse.

Se creuser la tête sur un puzzle, monter un escalier, pratiquer une activité physique intense… l’effort est consubstantiel à nombre de nos actions. Sa perception influence non seulement notre motivation immédiate à agir, mais aussi notre engagement durable dans le temps.

Souvent vu comme un coût, l’effort peut constituer une barrière majeure à l’engagement dans des tâches exigeantes, qu’elles soient physiques ou mentales.

L’effort, une composante essentielle de nos comportements

Pendant longtemps, la recherche a considéré l’effort comme un coût à éviter, dans un monde où notre environnement permet de plus en plus de minimiser nos efforts. C’est dans cette perspective que nous avons formulé la théorie de la minimisation de l’effort en activité physique (theory of effort minimization in physical ou TEMPA), selon laquelle nous sommes naturellement enclins à une certaine paresse physique.

Pourtant, cette vision demeurait incomplète. Dans un même contexte donné, pourquoi certains d’entre nous s’adonnent-ils régulièrement – et parfois excessivement – à une activité physique, tandis que d’autres peinent à traduire leurs louables intentions en actions ? Certains travaux montrent que, si l’effort est souvent perçu comme aversif, il peut, chez certaines personnes et en fonction des situations, devenir une source de motivation, voire de plaisir.

Ce contraste illustre le « paradoxe de l’effort » : l’effort est à la fois perçu comme un coût et comme quelque chose de valorisé. Pour mieux comprendre ce paradoxe, et enrichir la théorie de la minimisation de l’effort en activité physique (TEMPA), nous avons proposé dans une publication scientifique récente de distinguer trois phases clé au cours desquelles la perception de l’effort influence de manière spécifique la régulation de nos comportements : avant, pendant et après l’action.

Avant l’effort physique : l’anticiper freine l’action

Avant de passer à l’action, notre cerveau évalue si le bénéfice potentiel vaut l’effort requis. Ainsi, entre monter un escalier ou prendre l’escalator, la tendance automatique de la plupart des personnes est d’éviter l’effort physique.

En conditions de laboratoire, des participants manifestent aussi une préférence spontanée envers les actions demandant moins d’effort, même sans percevoir consciemment la différence. Dans la vie quotidienne, cela se traduit par des comportements très concrets : plus de 90 % des individus optent pour l’escalator plutôt que l’escalier lorsqu’ils ont le choix.

Mais dans la vie réelle, le choix entre deux comportements ne se résume pas à la seule différence d’effort à fournir. Certaines activités exigeantes sur le plan physique, comme la course, la danse ou le jardinage, ou sur le plan mental, comme les mots croisés, les échecs ou le sudoku, sont aussi choisies en raison des récompenses qu’elles procurent, telles que le plaisir, la fierté, le bien-être, le sentiment d’accomplissement. Dans ces cas, l’effort anticipé peut certes constituer un frein, mais il ne suffit généralement pas à dissuader l’engagement dans une activité désirée.

Pendant l’effort : économiser l’énergie

Une fois engagés dans l’action, nous cherchons à limiter notre dépense énergétique en réduisant l’effort fourni – tout en atteignant nos buts. Par exemple, lorsque l’on court pour attraper un bus, on ralentit dès qu’on est sûr de l’attraper. Ce mécanisme, hérité de l’évolution, s’inscrit dans un héritage évolutif crucial à la survie.

Dès l’enfance, ce mécanisme d’économie d’énergie émerge. Les tout-petits passent d’une démarche maladroite à un pas nettement plus économe. En laboratoire. Des chercheurs ont même équipé des adultes d’un exosquelette – un cadre robotisé fixé aux jambes – pour rendre leur marche habituelle plus coûteuse. Ils ont alors observé que très rapidement ces derniers réajustent la fréquence et l’amplitude de leurs pas pour réduire l’effort à fournir, même lorsque les gains d’énergie sont minimes.

Ce résultat souligne comment notre système moteur s’adapte aux contraintes environnantes pour converger vers un optimum énergétique. Chez les coureurs d’élite, la foulée, le balancement des bras et la répartition de l’effort sont finement calibrés, démontrant l’importance de cette stratégie tant ici pour la performance sportive que plus largement pour la survie.

Ainsi, minimiser l’effort ne signifie pas refuser l’effort, mais l’employer judicieusement pour atteindre ses objectifs sans gaspiller d’énergie.

Après l’effort, la récompense perçue est renforcée

Après l’action, nous avons tendance à accorder d’autant plus de valeur au résultat que l’effort fourni a été important. Imaginez gravir une montagne à la force de vos mollets. Le sentiment d’accomplissement en magnifie la vue, alors qu’un trajet en téléphérique, aussi spectaculaire soit-il, laisse souvent un souvenir moins marquant. Cet effet, baptisé « Ikea effect » en référence à la satisfaction d’avoir soi-même monté ses meubles, montre que les récompenses gagnées au prix d’un effort paraissent plus gratifiantes.

En laboratoire, cet effet se vérifie par des mesures de l’activité encéphalographique. Lorsque les participants choisissent entre tâches à faible ou intense effort pour obtenir une récompense, l’activité neuronale associée à la récompense est plus intense après un effort élevé. Autrement dit, même si nous cherchons à éviter l’effort, une fois celui‑ci accompli, nous jugeons les gains obtenus d’autant plus gratifiants.

Ce phénomène, appelé justification de l’effort, est une forme de dissonance cognitive décrite il y a plus de soixante ans par le psychologue américain Leon Festinger. Ce mécanisme illustre comment, par réinterprétation, pour atténuer l’inconfort ressenti lors d’une tâche exigeante, nous justifions l’effort important consenti en attribuant une valeur supérieure au résultat obtenu. Cette théorie aide à comprendre le paradoxe de l’effort : bien que nous évitions généralement l’effort, il peut aussi être activement recherché car il signale l’obtention de récompenses potentielles.

Exploiter le rôle dynamique de l’effort pour promouvoir l’engagement dans des tâches exigeantes

En jouant sur les trois phases de l’effort, il est possible de remodeler la perception de l’effort et d’encourager, entre autres comportements, la pratique régulière d’activité physique.

Avant l’effort, ajuster les attentes liées à l’effort permettrait de lever les freins associés la surestimation de l’effort. De courtes séances d’initiation, un retour d’expérience personnalisé, ou une progression graduelle, aide à calibrer ces attentes, surtout chez les personnes les plus sédentaires. Attention toutefois : sous-estimer l’effort réel risquerait de provoquer une déception et de freiner les tentatives suivantes.

Pendant l’effort, détourner l’attention des sensations désagréables (fatigue, inconfort) à l’aide d’éléments externes (musique, environnement perçu comme agréable…), ou se projeter mentalement ailleurs, peut diminuer la perception de l’effort et améliorer les ressentis émotionnels. De même, adapter l’intensité, la durée et le type d’exercice aux préférences de chacun rend l’expérience plus agréable et renforce la motivation.

Après l’effort, il convient d’encourager la prise de conscience des efforts réalisés et des bénéfices immédiats (meilleure humeur, énergie, sentiment de vitalité et de bien-être…). En associant systématiquement l’effort à ces récompenses, on crée une dynamique vertueuse qui incite à persévérer.

Contrairement au fait d’évoquer les bénéfices à long terme sur la santé – même s’ils sont réels –, ce sont ces expériences affectives positives qui constituent l’un des leviers les plus puissants pour encourager une pratique régulière de l’activité physique.

Peut-on apprendre à aimer l’effort ?

L’effort, souvent vu comme un coût, peut aussi accroître la valeur que l’on perçoit d’une activité donnée, surtout quand cette activité procure in fine des bénéfices tangibles. Ce type d’associations pourrait expliquer pourquoi certaines personnes valorisent plus que d’autres, les tâches exigeantes, que ce soit mentalement ou physiquement.

La théorie de « l’ardeur apprise » suggère que l’effort devient gratifiant quand il est associé à des récompenses répétées, même simples comme des encouragements. Des études montrent que des participants récompensés pour des tâches difficiles tendent à persévérer dans d’autres efforts, même une fois que les récompenses en ont été tirées.

Cependant, l’effort peut-il une récompense en soi ? D’un point de vue évolutif, économiser l’énergie est essentiel, et choisir l’option la plus économique semble logique. Chercher l’effort sans bénéfice peut être contre-productif, voire devenir pathologique (addiction, anorexie). L’effort devient valorisé quand il est associé à des expériences positives (fierté, sentiment de compétence). Ce n’est donc pas l’effort lui-même qui est gratifiant, mais ce qu’il permet d’atteindre, en dépit de son coût.

Apprendre à exploiter l’effort pour les bénéfices qu’il procure

L’effort guide nos comportements à chaque étape de l’action : avant, il façonne nos décisions ; pendant, il guide la manière dont nous allouons notre énergie ; après, il peut renforcer la valeur du résultat obtenu.

En jouant sur cette dynamique – recalibrer nos attentes, alléger le ressenti de l’effort en temps réel et souligner les récompenses glanées – on peut transformer l’effort en moteur durable d’engagement, voire susciter le goût de l’effort.

Plutôt que d’en subir le coût, nous apprendrions ainsi à exploiter l’effort pour apprécier les bénéfices qu’il procure.

Boris Cheval a reçu des financements de Rennes Métropole et de l’Union Européenne

Florent Desplanques et Silvio Maltagliati ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.

– ref. Anatomie d’un effort, ou comment déjouer notre tendance à la paresse pour bouger plus – https://theconversation.com/anatomie-dun-effort-ou-comment-dejouer-notre-tendance-a-la-paresse-pour-bouger-plus-263946

November 11, 2025

Jane Austen perfected the love story – but kept her own independence

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor, The Conversation

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is a podcast from The Conversation celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth. In each episode, we’ll be investigating a different aspect of Austen’s personality by interrogating one of her novels with leading Austen researchers. Along the way we’ll visit locations important to Austen to uncover a particular aspect of her life and the times she lived in. In episode 2, we look at Jane the romantic, through the pages of Pride and Prejudice.

Every heroine in a Jane Austen novel ends up married. It is the bow on the end of every story that ties up all the loose threads – seemingly the ultimate happy ending. However, while marriage is an conclusion she chose for her characters, it is not one she chose for herself.

Austen did have suitors – most famously the dashing Irishman Thomas Lefroy, with whom she had a brief but intense flirtation. There were even proposals, notably one in 1802 from Harris Bigg-Wither, the wealthy brother of a friend, which she accepted only to promptly break off the very next morning.

It seems likely that Austen chose singledom, even though she was clearly preoccupied with romance and marriage. Many readers consider her one of history’s greatest writers of romance.

That her novels centre on love and marriage has sometimes led critics to dismiss them as light or frivolous. But beneath every courtship and proposal lies a sharp commentary on class, money, morality and the limited choices available to women in Georgian England.

Austen’s heroines are smart, capable women – often more so than the men in their lives, many of whom have made choices that have left their families in financial straits. But these middle-class women are unable to work and so must pursue the only option really available to them, marriage.

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in Austen’s second novel, Pride and Prejudice. Published in 1813, it follows Elizabeth Bennet – bright, outspoken, and sceptical of society’s conventions. Unluckily for her, she has a mother who is obsessed with securing suitable marriages for her and her four sisters – an obsession that is sent into overdrive when the eligible Mr Bingley moves into the neighbourhood, bringing his arrogant but equally eligible friend Mr Darcy with him.

In the second episode of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail, as we explore romance in the world of Jane Austen, Naomi Joseph visits a Regency ball at the Grand Assembly Rooms in York with Meg Kobza. An expert in the Georgian social calendar, at Newcastle University, Kobza has produced similar recreations at the Bath Assembly Rooms – where Austen attended balls and was courted by several men.

As dancers in all manner of Regency dress attempt a minuet in the soft candlelight of the main ballroom, Kobza helps us understand the complicated relationship Austen had with romance.

Over the course of Pride and Prejudice, Lizzie, and the other women in her life, must navigate their feelings on the whole institution of marriage. There are marriages of convenience, potentially socially ruinous unions, hasty weddings, quiet passions and, of course, love matches – and Austen seems to have opinions on them all.

“Jane herself was dependent on her father and then later her brothers for financial security. And we see in many of her novels financial security is driving a lot of her heroines to opt for or against certain matches,” says Kobza. “If you didn’t get married at all, you became a spinster, you’re a burden to your family.”

Later on in the episode, Anna Walker takes a deeper dive into Austen’s view of romance in Pride and Prejudice with two more experts. Octavia Cox is a lecturer in 18th and 19th century literature at the University of Oxford, and founder of the popular YouTube channel All Things Classic Literature. Joining her round the table is Adam J. Smith, an associate professor in English literature at York, St. John University who researches satire and the gothic, romantic and sentimental genres.

As Cox explains, Pride and Prejudice is “a joyful love story in that the two central characters, Darcy and Lizzie talk about and value happiness and how to achieve happiness. But there’s a lot more going on too.” Smith agrees: “The more I read Austen, the more I feel that all of the books are really about how to read and understand and interpret the world.”

Listen to episode 2 of Jane Austen’s Paper Trail wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re craving more Austen, check out our Jane Austen 250 page for more expert articles celebrating the anniversary.

Disclosure statement:

Meg Kobza recieved funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy and the Society of Antiquaries funded the Bath fancy dress pop up ball and exhibition.

Adam J Smith sits on the Senate of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, which is a registered charity.

Octavia Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Jane Austen’s Paper Trail is hosted by Anna Walker with reporting from Jane Wright and Naomi Joseph. Senior producer and sound designer is Eloise Stevens and the executive producer is Gemma Ware. Artwork by Alice Mason and Naomi Joseph.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.

– ref. Jane Austen perfected the love story – but kept her own independence – https://theconversation.com/jane-austen-perfected-the-love-story-but-kept-her-own-independence-269048

November 11, 2025

Prince William: We told the kids everything about Kate’s cancer

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prince William says it was a “balancing act” for himself and his wife to share details of the family’s recent health challenges, including Catherine’s and King Charles’s cancer diagnoses.

In a rare and candid interview in Brazil, the prince said that “hiding stuff from them doesn’t work”.

He was responding to a question about how the couple had approached difficult moments with their three children — Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven.

The princess spoke about her cancer diagnosis in a video in early 2024, after months of speculation about her health.

supplied/BBC news

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Jose Torres-Pruñonosa, Profesor Titular de Universidad, UNIR – Universidad Internacional de La Rioja

13 de abril de 2024: Partido de Liga entre el Atlético de Madrid y el Girona f.c en el metropolitano. Marta Fernandez Jimenez/Shutterstock

En la Navidad de 2011, la llegada de Diego Pablo, el Cholo, Simeone al banquillo del Atlético de Madrid transformó al club. Desde el primer día, el técnico argentino, que en los noventa del siglo pasado había sido jugador y capitán del club, imprimió de inmediato una mentalidad nueva que ha sido el eje sobre el que ha girado la reconstrucción institucional y deportiva del Atlético de Madrid.

En noviembre de 2025, la evolución del Atlético de Madrid da un paso más –esta vez desde el punto de vista de su estructura de propiedad– con la entrada como accionista mayoritario de Apollo Sports Capital (ASC), una filial del grupo Apollo Global Management, especializada en inversiones en el ámbito deportivo y del entretenimiento.

Leer más:
¿De los clubes de fútbol a las empresas de fútbol? Cinco claves para entenderlo

El verano del desencanto

El verano de 2011 marcó un punto de inflexión para el Atlético de Madrid. Concluida la temporada 2010-2011, el argentino Sergio Agüero anunció que su “etapa en el Atlético de Madrid había terminado”, lo que desencadenó una intensa oleada de salidas que se han recordado como “la desbandada”.

En cuestión de semanas se materializó la marcha de figuras como Diego Forlán o David de Gea, mientras el equipo apenas había reforzado su plantilla. Esto generó enormes dudas sobre la capacidad del técnico Gregorio Manzano para afrontar la pretemporada con garantías. Esa conmoción estructural reflejaba, más que un simple mercado de traspasos, una crisis de proyecto, de identidad deportiva y de continuidad en el club rojiblanco. La marcha de los referentes dejó al Atleti debilitado, con un calendario exigente y sin apenas margen de error.

Unos meses después de ese convulso verano, la realidad no era mucho mejor. El Atleti fue eliminado tempranamente de la Copa del Rey por el Albacete Balompié (un equipo de Segunda División) y, al llegar diciembre de 2011, ocupaba una posición cercana a los puestos de descenso.

En ese contexto de crisis deportiva (que amenazaba con volverse estructural) llegó, el 23 de diciembre de 2011, la decisión que marcaría un punto de inflexión para el club: la contratación de Diego Pablo Simeone como nuevo entrenador del equipo.

Primera entrevista del Cholo Simeone como entrenador del Atleti, 27 de diciembre de 2011. Fuente: YouTube, Atlético de Madrid.

La era Simeone: crecimiento y éxitos

La evolución del Atleti durante la era Simeone es un caso ejemplar de simbiosis entre éxito deportivo y crecimiento institucional. Desde su llegada a finales de 2011, el técnico argentino ha conquistado dos Ligas, dos Europa League, dos Supercopas de Europa, una Copa del Rey y una Supercopa de España. Además, ha disputado dos finales de la Liga de Campeones.

Este palmarés –sin precedentes en la historia moderna del club– ha coincidido con una expansión sostenida en sus dimensiones sociales y económicas: el número de socios superó los 140 000 (más del doble que en su primer año) y la facturación pasó de unos 100 millones de euros a rozar los 400 millones.

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El éxito sobre el césped impulsó una marca global que permitió financiar su mudanza del Manzanares al nuevo estadio, el Metropolitano, de la avenida de Arcentales, y situar al club entre las veinte entidades deportivas más valiosas del mundo. Un salto que parecía impensable en el verano de “la desbandada”.

Nueva estructura accionarial

Según el acuerdo anunciado el 10 de noviembre de 2025, ASC se convertirá en el principal propietario del club, aunque sus actuales máximos dirigentes, Miguel Ángel Gil y Enrique Cerezo, seguirán siendo accionistas (minoritarios) y conservarán sus cargos de consejero delegado y presidente, respectivamente.

El pacto contempla una inyección de capital destinada a respaldar los planes de largo plazo del club: reforzar la solidez financiera, la competitividad deportiva y el compromiso con la comunidad. También está el desarrollo de la Ciudad del Deporte, en las inmediaciones de su estadio, que por cuestiones de patrocinio y por lo menos hasta 2033 se llama Riyadh Air Metropolitano.

La nueva propietaria del Atleti es una empresa especializada en inversiones en deporte y entretenimiento. Se trata de un holding de capital permanente; esto es, que no opera con plazos fijos de salida (como los fondos de private equity tradicionales), sino que pretende mantenerse como socio a largo plazo en las entidades deportivas en las que invierte. En el contexto de la operación con el Atlético de Madrid, este perfil encaja con la estrategia anunciada de reforzar la solidez financiera, la competitividad deportiva y el desarrollo de infraestructuras asociadas al club.

Si el propósito último de un fondo como Apollo Sports Capital es crear valor, resulta inevitable preguntarse, ¿qué puede generar más valor para un club de fútbol que ganar la Liga de Campeones?

Éxitos deportivos y ganancias económicas

En la historia reciente, inversores individuales como Roman Abramóvich en el Chelsea o Silvio Berlusconi en el Milan demostraron que la conquista del gran título europeo puede multiplicar tanto el prestigio global como el valor económico de una entidad deportiva.

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Sin embargo, mientras aquellos proyectos se sustentaron en el mecenazgo personal y una lógica de gasto ilimitado, los fondos institucionales como Apollo operan bajo parámetros distintos: buscan estabilidad financiera, sostenibilidad y retornos medibles en el tiempo.

Entonces, la pregunta es si el modelo de capital paciente –en los que la inversión es a largo plazo y no se espera un retorno rápido sino beneficios más sustanciales a futuro– puede compatibilizarse con la naturaleza imprevisible y emocional del fútbol de élite.

Win-win: aficionados y accionistas

El gran desafío del Atlético de Madrid en esta nueva etapa será armonizar los intereses de sus grupos de interés (stakeholders): los aficionados –la base emocional e histórica del club– aspiran a fichajes ambiciosos, victorias resonantes y, en última instancia, a títulos. Mientras, los nuevos accionistas persiguen la sostenibilidad económica y la creación de valor a largo plazo.

Conciliar ambas dimensiones no es tarea menor, implica redefinir la gobernanza del club para equilibrar pasión y prudencia financiera. El Atlético ya ha sido pionero en la exploración de nuevos modelos de relación con su comunidad: a comienzos de 2020 lanzó, a través de la plataforma socios.com, fan tokens con los que pretendía, mediante la tecnología blockchain, hacer sentir a sus seguidores más partícipes del día a día del club a sus seguidores. No obstante, hoy, esos activos cotizan en valores mínimos, reflejo del escaso papel real que han tenido los tokenistas en la toma de decisiones.

La entrada de Apollo reabre pues el debate sobre cuál debe ser el modelo de gestión más eficiente para un club como el Atleti.

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¿Y ahora qué?

El reto para el Atlético de Madrid es aún más complejo si se enmarca en el ecosistema particular del fútbol español, históricamente dominado por el FC Barcelona y el Real Madrid. Ambos clubes concentran la mayoría de los ingresos comerciales y televisivos, y, además, ejercen una influencia estructural sobre la narrativa mediática e institucional. Su capacidad para duopolizar la atención (y con ello la facturación derivada de patrocinadores, audiencias y derechos de imagen) deja a los demás competidores en una posición desigual y de desventaja.

La trayectoria del Atlético de Madrid en los últimos quince años resume, en buena medida, la transformación del fútbol europeo en una industria global. De la crisis identitaria de 2011 pasando por la consolidación del cholismo hasta la actual entrada de Apollo Sports Capital, el club ha pasado de ser una institución con problemas estructurales a convertirse en un activo financiero de interés internacional.

Leer más:
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Pero esta evolución también plantea una paradoja: cuanto más sólido es el proyecto empresarial más difícil resulta preservar su alma popular. El desafío para el Atleti (y, por extensión, para el fútbol moderno) está en encontrar el punto de equilibrio entre capital y sentimiento, entre el beneficio económico y la pertenencia emocional.

Si lo logra, podrá demostrar que, en el siglo XXI, todavía es posible competir con los gigantes sin perder la esencia de club que, durante más de un siglo, ha hecho latir a varias generaciones de rojiblancos.

Jose Torres-Pruñonosa es socio del Futbol Club Barcelona.

Benito Pérez-González es socio-abonado del Atlético de Madrid

Raúl Gómez Martínez no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Del Cholo a Apollo: ¿qué implica que un fondo de inversiones se convierta en accionista mayoritario del Atlético de Madrid? – https://theconversation.com/del-cholo-a-apollo-que-implica-que-un-fondo-de-inversiones-se-convierta-en-accionista-mayoritario-del-atletico-de-madrid-269363

Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

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Del Cholo a Apollo: ¿qué implica que un fondo de inversiones se convierta en accionista mayoritario del Atlético de Madrid?

El verano del desencanto

La era Simeone: crecimiento y éxitos

Nueva estructura accionarial

Éxitos deportivos y ganancias económicas

Win-win: aficionados y accionistas

¿Y ahora qué?

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