Rob HorganA MADRID-based football club has offered to pay an 85-year-old woman’s rent for the rest of her life, after she was evicted from her home because her son could not pay his debts.
La Liga club Rayo Vallecano have offered Carmen Martinez Ayudo a ‘lifeline’ after her son acquired the property – and it’s €70,000 worth of debt – following the death of his father.
Seven police vans turned up to evict Ayudo and she was driven from her home on November 21.
She said: “I’ve no more tears left to cry.
“I’ve worked all my life, getting up at 6am to work like a slave and then all of a sudden they come to take everything away when all I want is to be left in peace.”
Head coach at Rayo Vallecano, Paco Jemez, said the club feel it is their ‘duty’ to support the local community and would ‘like to help more people like Carmen’.
He added: “We’re not going to stand around and do nothing, we’re going to help this woman.
“Not just me but the technical team and the players. We’ll give her a hand to find a place where she can live in dignity and not feel abandoned.
“Because she’s from the neighbourhood, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help.”
There were 67,000 evictions in Spain in 2013 while an estimated 3.4 million properties stand empty.
Takes a football club to do what the government should have done. Great job Spain, the country of the family.