By Paul Nicholson
June 23 – Javier Tebas was his typical forthright self at a media event today where he covered multiple topics from the failed European Super League to next year’s LaLiga attendance expectations, the importance of LaLiga’s right to govern itself, and the relative importance, or unimportance, of Lionel Messi to Spain.
Billed as an ‘End of Season’ wrap up, the timing was a couple of days after LaLiga reported total income of €5.045 billion for the 2019-20 season, a 3.6% increase on the 2018-19 despite the impact of the start of the covid pandemic. It is the only one of Europe’s Big 5 leagues of Spain, Italy, England, France and Germany to report income growth, a point Tebas was keen to make.
The Spanish league said that without covid, its estimated revenue would have hit €5.321m, a 9.3% year-on-year increase. For the past five seasons LaLiga has averaged 12% growth.
LaLiga’s success is one based on income growth and enforcing strict financial control over its clubs. Tebas emphasised that overspending on player wages was a recipe for disaster, and is a theme he often returns to.
See: LaLiga tops €5bn in revenue
“Barcelona have exceeded their wage cap,” he told media earlier in the week. “I hope they can keep [Lionel] Messi, but to do so, they will have to make cuts elsewhere.”
“Of the €700m ($833.5m) losses [around La Liga], half of them are for Barcelona. There are other big clubs that have made a bigger effort to avoid it. Real Madrid have made a commendable effort to ensure their losses aren’t the same as Barca, who take the trophy for losses,” Tebas said.
His tone at the press conference today was slightly more compromising but the overall message was clear: if Barca want to keep Messi then either his salary will have to be reduced or other players will have to leave to meet the overall wage restriction. Or Barcelona will have to get more revenue.
Asked what Messi’s value was to LaLiga, Tebas was unequivocal in his belief that Messi made no difference, citing the recently concluded seven-year deal with ESPN in which there was never any mention of whether Messi would be playing in the league.
“But the league does want the best players in the league and we want him to play here. Not just for economic reasons but because he has always been associated with FC Barcelona and Spain,” said Tebas.
Super League: time to move on
On the failed European Super League that still has Spain’s two biggest clubs as two of the three remaining protagonists, Tebas again argued that they were damaging and dangerous to football’s ecosystem in Europe and Spain.
“The majority of the nine who left (the ESL) want to turn over a new leaf…I think the majority of the English clubs want to forget the Super League debate led by the Real Madrid president and start a new debate,” said Tebas. “In Spain we are all aligned, except Barcelona and Real Madrid…We are making sure the big clubs won’t control Spanish football.”
The issue of control is one LaLiga has been battling at home with its own national federation (RFEF). A recent court ruling means that LaLiga can now play matches on Monday and Friday nights, match days the RFEF didn’t want used.
Tebas said the court ruling was important on two counts. Firstly the court ruled that LaLiga was the competent authority to manage its competition. “The federation wanted to take away some of LaLiga’s competencies, but the court left them with LaLiga,” said Tebas.
Secondly Monday and Friday matches are seen as important as they bring different broadcast time slots and days and increase the value of rights.
New season more fans
And what about next season? Tebas thinks the season will start with stadiums averaging 70% of their full capacity. But he sees 100% occupancy being achieved by November/December if the current downward trend of infections and hospitalisations is maintained.
That would be great news for the clubs generally, but the relationship between LaLiga and Barca/Real Madrid, is still one that is very much in intensive care.
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