Francisco Manuel Vélez Jiménez, known as Fran Vélez (Tarragona, 23 June 1991), is a Spanish centre-back, 1.82 metres tall, who has also played at right-back. In the summer of 2017, after four years at UD Almería, he terminated his contract and moved to Poland to join Wisła Kraków. That move began eight straight seasons abroad, with spells at Aris Thessaloniki, Panathinaikos and Saudi side Al Fateh. He returned to Spanish football with FC Cartagena in 2025.
Youth career in Tarragona
He played for La Floresta from 2007 to 2009 and joined the Gimnàstic de Tarragona academy in 2009. He made his competitive first-team debut on 10 April 2010, aged 18, starting in a 1-1 draw away to Albacete Balompié in the Spanish second division. Over the next seasons he divided his time between the first team and CF Pobla de Mafumet, the club’s affiliate side. In 2011-12 he was loaned to UD Logroñés, where he played 28 league games and scored once. He returned to Nàstic in 2012 and spent the 2012-13 campaign in the first-team squad under coach Kiko Ramírez. His older brother, José Antonio Vélez, known as “Ñoño”, was also a footballer and played for both Gimnàstic and Pobla.
Almería: from the reserves to La Liga
In September 2013 he signed for UD Almería, who placed him in their reserve side. His first-team debut came on 14 January 2014 in the Copa del Rey round of 16 against Racing de Santander. He started at right-back in a 2-0 home defeat that ended the tie (3-1 on aggregate). On 27 April 2014 he made his La Liga debut away to RCD Espanyol and scored in a 2-1 win as Almería fought to stay up. He was promoted to the first-team squad for good in July 2014. Almería were relegated in 2015, and Vélez stayed for two more seasons in the second division. He made 75 league appearances and scored twice for the Andalusian club before player and club agreed to end his contract in June 2017.
Poland and the move to Greece
At Wisła Kraków he played 17 Ekstraklasa games in 2017-18, a spell cut short by injury. His only goal in the Polish league came on 18 March 2018 in a 2-0 away win over Legia Warsaw. In July 2018 he joined Aris Thessaloniki in the Greek Super League. He scored his first goal for the club on 24 February 2019, a header in a 1-1 draw at PAOK, Aris’s city neighbours. Over two seasons he made 54 appearances in league and cup, 47 of them in the league, and scored five goals.
Panathinaikos and the Greek Cup
In July 2020, with his Aris contract over, he signed for Panathinaikos on a deal until 2022. In Athens he played 54 league games and scored twice in two seasons. On 21 May 2022 he started the Greek Cup final as captain against PAOK at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, in front of more than 45,000 spectators. He played the full 90 minutes of a 1-0 win, decided by an Aitor Cantalapiedra penalty in the 34th minute. It was Panathinaikos’s 19th Greek Cup and their first since 2014.
Saudi Arabia and a return to Thessaloniki
In July 2022 he left Greece for Al Fateh of the Saudi Pro League. He played 21 league games in 2022-23 without scoring. On 8 September 2023 he returned to Aris on a two-year contract. In his second spell in Thessaloniki he played at centre-back and at right-back, and he stayed at the club until the summer of 2025.
Back in Spain with Cartagena
On 17 July 2025, after eight seasons abroad, he joined FC Cartagena as a free agent. The club had been relegated from the Spanish second division to the Primera Federación in April 2025, after five years in the second tier. It was his first Spanish club since he left Almería in June 2017.
