Reportedly, Décathlon wants to freeze wages in Spain for the next three years, in view of the difficult economic situation in the country, but the company declines to comment. According to another report in CMD, Spanish sporting goods retailers suffered the biggest sales decline in 15 years last year, but some of them took advantage of lower rental rates to open new stores or to move existing ones to better locations. Décathlon raised the number of its Spanish stores to 98 from 92 at the end of 2011. A smaller local chain, Deportes Blanes, moved from 43 to 58 stores, measuring a total of 23,315 square meters, compared with Décathlon's 369,460 m². Intersport España also suffered a decline, but the Spanish buying group is planning to set up five large company-owned stores of between 1,600 and 2,000 m² by 2016; the first one should be inaugurated in Valencia next month.

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