May 15 – Despite the Spanish courts lifting the threat of an end-of-season La Liga strike over the imposition of a collective TV rights bargaining agreement, the unsavoury war of words between the various parties shows little sign of abating.
Spanish league president Javier Tebas, who fiercely opposed the strike, has been compared to a Nazi boss by former Spanish national coach Javier Clemente in a series of abusive tweets.
Clemente, who has a history of verbal outbursts, used his Twitter account to support Spanish federation chief Angel Maria Villar, who proposed the strike over the new broadcasting deal but who has been over-ruled by the courts.
Clemente is the current Libyan coach after a career spanning Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Madrid, Espanyol, Real Sociedad and, most recently, Sporting Gijon.
The 65-year-old is no stranger to controversy and made his outburst after Tebas criticised Villar for being “stuck in medieval times”.
“To say that our president is stuck in medieval times is an unacceptable attack on a colleague in football,” said Clemente. “If the president is stuck in the Medieval times, then you are stuck in the times of Hitler, as a boss of a concentration camp.
“Since when has a strike been illegal? Wikipedia tells us that since you were young, you have been a bitter man who will do whatever you can to further your own career. The only thing that you have done for football is earn money for yourself, leaving many players to go without pay.
“And as a lawyer I believe you are from the era of Al Capone. You haven’t studied law and don’t understand it.”
The strike was suspended after a petition filed by the league against planned action by the players’ union (AFE) was upheld by the High Court. The move threatened to disrupt the final two weekends in La Liga, and the King’s Cup final at the end of the month.
The new TV law, approved last month, would replace the current system under which rights are marketed by individual clubs. The measure aims to share out cash more fairly between teams, starting from season 2016-17.
Sports minister Jose Ignacio Wert said he was hopeful the government and league on one side and the union and the federation on the other would be able to settle their differences.
But Tebas has suggested that Villar should quit as federation president after his call for a shutdown failed.
“The president of the federation is behind all this,” declared Tebas. “He sits up in his feudal castle. We, the league, are a part of the federarion and we think, in the circumstances, that he should go – but he won’t because he’s been there for 26 years and he is not going to change now.”
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