Spanish Sports Minister elect wants Barcelona and Real Madrid to share TV money

By David Gold

November 15 – Real Madrid and Barcelona should share more money from television rights with their La Liga counterparts, according to Miriam Blasco, who could be Spain’s Sports Minister on Sunday (November 20) if her People’s Party win the country’s General Election.

According to polls they are on course to depose the existing socialist Government, and the 1992 Olympic judo gold medallist Blasco told Reuters that the La Liga giants should support smaller teams, as the league “would not exist if it was not working for all the clubs”.

“Real Madrid and Barcelona sell much more than any other club so I agree that they should get the biggest share,” he said.

“But I believe that the other clubs should get what they deserve because their current revenues are much smaller.

Blasco also criticised the state of club finances in Spain – four teams are currently in administration, and six in total have been in that position since the start of the season.

“Football is living beyond its means and only two clubs are viable as things stand,” she said.

“There are more and more clubs in administration and if it collapses then Real Madrid and Barcelona will lose too.

“What we have to do is find a consensus and what we are aiming to do is start a dialogue with everyone and act as intermediaries in the talks.”

Barcelona and Real Madrid currently negotiate their television rights deals individually, and rake in more than €150 million (£131 million/$202 million) a season, a figure almost 19 times larger than that earned by some of the smallest clubs in La Liga.

A collective agreement has been agreed in principle between the 20 teams in the league, which would see Barcelona and Real share 34 per cent of La Liga’s total TV revenues, Atletico Madrid and Valencia take 11 per cent between them, and then the rest of the teams would divide the remaining 55 per cent.

This is currently being opposed by a small group of teams including Sevilla and Villarreal, who believe that this will disadvantage them disproportionately and entrench the dominance of the top teams.

They also say that the league has been devalued, and that no-one will want to watch it if only two teams are capable of winning the title.

Blasco insisted that the Government was not keen to legislate to force a collective deal, but the European Parliament are likely to recommend that Spain adopts such a television rights model as part of a Culture and Education report on sport, as was revealed by insideworldfootball earlier this year.

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