By David Gold
March 14 – Portugal’s Premier League will expand to 18 teams from next season, the country’s Professional Football League (LPFP) has announced.
The two teams finishing bottom of the league this season will avoid relegation as a result, though the decision made today still needs to be ratified by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) and the National Sports Council.
The LPFP also decided to complain to the European Union about the way in which television rights are distributed, following a heated debate, according to Reuters.
Portugal, like Spain, has club by club negotiations, which mean the bigger teams get a larger slice of revenues from television deals.
This contrasts with the model in England, France, Germany and Italy, where the leagues negotiate on behalf of the clubs and divide the money more equitably.
Annual television revenues in Portugal are in the region of €75 million (£62 million/$96 million), which means that the big three, Porto, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, would be badly affected by the collective sharing of television rights.
The trio currently take half of Portuguese television income, while Porto, the current Europa League holders, made more than a third of their revenues in 2010 from broadcasting.
“This was an historic day, we managed to gather support for a structural question and an eventual complaint to end the monopoly of TV rights,” said the LPFP President Mário Figueiredo.
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