大象传媒

Very interesting. this uefa financial fair play ruling seems to be affecting everyone. And its strange that they are still resistant to foreign owners when seemingly so much in debt? Have many clubs in Spain faced administration yet? Or has the semi-professional third tier meant less clubs struggle? I'm certainly glad Premier League clubs can't control their own TV rights, madness would ensue.

Good article Mr Minshull. The TV rights in Spain are scary in that Barcelona and Spain get a huge chunk of the money leaving other clubs to essentially starve. This doesn't disguise, nor justify, the fact that these clubs are heavily in debt to the taxman. As we have seen in the UK, the taxman needs to take a no nonsense approach to ensure clubs pay their debts and we, as taxpayers first and fans second, also need to be repaid.

Of course, I meant to write Real Madrid and not Spain before anyone points it out for me. If one club were to be known as Spain, it would more likely be Barcelona! The Spanish league is even more imbalanced than the Premier League.

Agreed with both posts, the distribution of funds amongst the teams in Spain is terrible. In the UK the promoted teams from the Championship have an eye watering reward from the PL and ultimately the television rights and in my opinion to be promoted from such a tough divisiion deserves as much.

However these issues always boil down to money because greed has taken over common sense in the Western World.

Why show poorer people the games for free? Rich business men don't get anything out of it and surely isn't that what footballs about, making fat cats richer?

I wish the UK government would make the PL show 1 PL game a week on terrestrial but then super rich people like Rupert Murdoch wouldn't be able to make millions/billions of pounds that he can evade from the taxman and thats not fair on poor old him is it?

The funny thing is some of the best players in the world come from incredibly impoverished environments like the favella's of Brazil and not to such a degree Rooney, Gerrard etc came from very humble parts of Liverpool.

These are the same future footballers whose families probably struggled to pay for satellite TV!!!

I fully agree with the posters above in reference to the unfairness of the distribution of tv rights in the LFP. I believe this will only hamper Real & Barcelona's progress in the future, especially in the champion's league as they will come up against stronger foreign teams without having any tough matches.

If the Premier League was forced to show 1 live match a week on terrestrial TV; then I think all us non-satellite subscribers would be bloody happy!

So, in a nutshell, the Spanish clubs want to squeeze yet more money out of their fans in order to pay for the club's own financial mismanagement?

Disgraceful. I love watching and playing football but the ridiculous fleecing of the fans, the huge debts (often to the taxpayer) racked up by the big clubs and the ridiculous salaries paid to the players leave a really bitter taste in the mouth.

The developments in Spain are of great interest when Financial Fair Play springs to mind. Platini many times spoke of Premiership clubs overspending and being in danger of liquidation. Just, in England, the Inland Revenue gets taxes promptly while in other countries - with Spain a leader - clubs are allowed to not pay taxes for up to 10 years, as we read in this article. English clubs have come on the bring of liquidation, as far as I remember, when they were asked to pay taxes and failed in doing so.

With regard to one match on free TV per week, the example is not the UK, where Murdoch makes billions out of football. People forget that when you pay some 拢150 per household, every single household, it is not too much to have one match available per week in this country, too.

The question when it comes to the two superclubs in Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid, is: with all preferential treatment they get in their country, with regard to taxes, TV money allocation, they still have hundreds of 拢m of debt. Hardly a comparison with the top English sides.

Isn't it common sense to question whether the appearance of 3 English clubs in the Champions League semi finals for 2-3 seasons has disturbed a few people in top offices in UEFA and are fighting English clubs?

It's a hard one to balance because, on the one hand, it's admirable that there is a law in place which ensures that the lesser beings who cannot necessarily afford expensive satellite television. On the other, these clubs shouldn't be forced into situations where they potentially are unable to maximise television revenues. I don't know whether this falls into FIFAs "no government interference" stance or whether that is simply with the country's football association but something has to give.

Yassir Malik is my friend.

This is an interesting subject as it is not what we would normally refer to as a strike where the employees (in this case the players) withdraw work from the employers (the club). Actually it is the employers saying they will stop all production.
While every one seems to be focusing on the clubs vs the government I wonder about the following:
(i) What is the attitude of the Spanish FA and League. Do they support the cancelling of these fixtures. Especially what was their attitude towards the fixtures where one of the teams was one of the 6 that wanted to play the original date. Had the game been cancelled by the other team could the team wanting to play have claimed the points?
(ii) What is the attitude of the broadcasters? How much leeway will they give the clubs to cancel games that they are paying to show? This could be very important in terms of the summer. If next season's league gets delayed by 2-3 weeks, are the fans going to start cancelling their subscriptions because they aren't getting live football?

To Football_UK (#9)

Is it possible that Platini has spoken about debt at Spanish clubs but the British media only highlight when he talks about the British clubs?

Either way the financial fair play regs will have just the same effect on these spanish clubs as the UK ones so it isn't about targeting the English clubs. If they wanted to do that they could have done it in such a way that wouldn't be about to affect the big spanish clubs (unless Platini's trying to get a french team to win it)

As for should we have a free game every week in the UK?
Why? Football has never been free to watch (beyond amateur level). Prior to television if you wanted to see the game you had to pay to enter the stadium and watch it. Why should it be any different now?

If people truely want football on free to air TV then all they have to do is band together and stop buying sky. With out the demand in the UK the price of the UK rights will fall and the free-to-air domestic channels will be able to afford the games again. Plus it will probably make very little difference to the clubs as most of the TV money comes from outside the UK which would be unaffected by this.

@ 13 great statement but you do realise that clubs like Wigan and Blackburn are not able to fill their stadiums 3/4's.

So free-to-air TV is not going to help the "lesser club" compared to Manchester United!!!

@ 13,

fair comments, more or less.

The question with regard to Platini having a go at English clubs was in relation to transfers made by Chelsea and Liverpool in January and recent transfers in the Premiership, while I am well aware that he hadn't made similar sort of momments when Real Madrid bought Ronaldo, Benzema, Kaka in one single season.

As for one match available on free TV here too, I don't think it would harm SKY and ESPN if one of those so called lesser Premiership matches was shown on free TV, every weekend. The paradox is that you find fans supporting Murdoch on this. Not viewing a free football match a week is not the only case where the interests of mulitnationals are supported in this country. The same thing happened more or less whenn a big tobacco case came about in USA and tobacco companies paid billions in compensations, while here the were left unharmed.

@ 15

momments -> comments : correction
mulitnationals -> multinationals
whenn -> when

I can't believe me!

:)

@ 14,

I did assume that the relevant tv channels would pay clubs for showing matches.
I don't know if I remember correctly, but the 大象传媒 pays football clubs also for when they appear as prime football news on the football 大象传媒 page.

if people asked me which leauge is better? i would say which way that is a dumb queston, first of all la liga currently has better quality of players lets be honest hey, primer is lacking behind and then theres serie a and the german leauge them two leauge are way off, in truth i nevr liked la liga only watchted the el classico but thats about it.

why i hate la liga the league is very boring to predictable meaning result ways, slow pace, and most of the players are also overrated, thats what i think.

the government helps them with the funding? are they serious can any1 see UK governement helping teams with money never, recently real borrowed money from the government like 2 years ago or soemthing.

la liga also sign young players, and then they say the primer leuage teams buy young players stealign talents" as they say, they also offer huge amount of money as salaries lol i live on less than 1% of their money ronaldo earns about 11.5 million pound by salaries, in year with deals about 28 million so thats just shameful act people are dying of food and there buyin hot pink pants.

also the fifa finacial play starts from 2012 and man utd it is a lon sotry how i hate the la liga leauge

I don't care much for Spanish football, it is a corrupt world there. But if the Spanish government helps any of them out I would fully expect Blatter to wade in and ban all Spanish teams and the Spanish national team from international competitions as per the rule he imposes on the smaller nations, like the ones he bans on the African continent.

If Spanish football suffers, so be it. I won't lose any sleep over it.

Welshjack87 (#14).
Not sure if I understood your post so apologies if my response isn't relevant.
My suggestion was purely about how the fans could get regular free to air games if we really wanted them. Other than suggesting that the amount lost on the annual income would be relatively small (ITV and 大象传媒 would both compete for the rights so the PL would still receive a good amount) for the clubs as the majority of their money from TV comes from foreign rights.

I make no claim that this will be either good or bad for any individual clubs (or even the league as a whole). Though I admit it would hit the smaller clubs more than the larger clubs as this money would make up a larger % of their overall budgets.

PS. This Platini thing going in here....

I just googled "Platini criticises La Liga". I got:

Platini criticises Arsene Wengers policy
Platini criticises Lax Premier League financial regulations
Platini criticises Serie A Spending
Platini criticises state stance
UEFA President Michel Platini plays down Premier League row
Platini backs Xavi for Ballon d'Or
UEFA president Platini reveals he is a fan of the Premier League
Michel Platini will expel debt ridden clubs from the Champions...
Platini backs Xavi for the Ballon d'Or
Platini: International stage must take priority

So despite his precious Spanish La Liga long being the worst league for financial security, not one result shows him criticising his precious jewel in his crown. The only person he hasn't criticised is me.... apart from all those linked to La Liga ofcourse.

I hope he sticks by his word and rules and makes sure that niether Real Madrid nor Barcelona take part in Europe when the 2012 financial fair play kicks in, because those two clubs never make a profit and between they have over 拢1,200,000,000 of debts!! That is 拢1.2 BILLION!!!

I bet you they don't fall under this new rule! Or any other Spanish club for that matter!

The free to air matches on spanish tv are normally Barcelona or Real Madrid v one of the smaller teams in the league. Most of the high profile games are on satellite tv. Imagine games like Manchester Utd v West Ham or Chelsea v Sunderland and you get the idea. If the clubs in Spain sold their own tv rights then the gap between Barcelona and Real Madrid and the rest of Spanish football will only get bigger.

It seems the top teams whatever the country are only interested in maximising their profits. When did top flight football stop being a sport?

What is happening at Rayo Vallecano is a disgrace and you have to admire the professionalism and desire of the players. Rayo Vallecano have worked their way to the top of the second division. There seems to be a either a complete lack of will or ability or both to pay the players wages from the clubs owners. The players appear to have done everything possible to resolve the problem only to be fobbed off everytime leaving withdrawing their labour as the only option left to them (strike is the wrong word as they aren't being paid and as such their contracts aren't being honoured by the club). I don't understand why the spanish league hasn't got involved. Good luck to them.

It puts the self serving strike by 14 of the top flight clubs into perspective.

I don't care much for Spanish football, it is a corrupt world there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you have any evidence of corruption or is this statement of a small minded bigot ?

Football_UK (#15)

Platini, fair enough. He probably does need to speak out about the financial stuff going on in Spain. Especially now with the tax revelations about Spanish clubs.

Agreed that a free to view wouldn't hurt Sky or other broadcasters. I just don't think it's our right to have it free to air league football.

Please let's not start the debate about which is better Premier League or La Liga.
In the end it comes down to a personnel view of what we like.

@ 24, ManchesterUnited4Ever,

I doubt Premiership matches will be viewed on free TV in this country, for one simple reason: citizens in the UK are far too much used to being ripped off, without standing a chance when they appear to be in contrast with what multinationals want. Still, it was a worthy thought, given the analogy with this court case.

The Realist at @21 gives the best example of why, when I read this article, Financial Fair Play and Platini came to my mind, as it "smelled" that Platini is not so fair when it comes to the Premiership, in comparison with La Liga.

SoriaSaint (#22)

Agree that it is appalling about the payment of players at Rayo.
In the UK I'm pretty certain the players could get their contracts cancelled for this which would allow them to sign for another club which would then pay them.
In fact a quick search brought up the case of Michael Stewart who cancelled a contract with a Turkish club for refusing to pay him while he was injured.
Given that, even though they haven't been paid, these players have made it to the top of the league, I would imagine that several clubs would be interested in them

Interesting point about the free-to-air games in Spain. While I don't think we have a right to free games, I agree that taking it away from Spain would make the gap larger. I also disagree with the clubs attempting to force the government to scrap the rule by refusing to play

So once again the same old English attitude of the world is against us has taken over this topic, no surprise there. Platini has spoken time and again against real madrid as well. Its just that the british media only chooses to focus on the criticism made towards english clubs and rightly so because every country will be primarily concerned with their own problem. Its the same in every other country in the world. Why do you have to make it seem like England is the center of everything?

take off your obviously biased shades and type "platini critises real madrid" in google and you will see what i mean. For crying out loud! Here is the first page.

Platini criticizes high transfer fees.
UEFA President Michel Platini criticizes Italian Stadiums | bettor.com
Michel Platini to Call into Question Real Madrid's Morality ...
Michel Platini: Real Madrid's Spending 'Annoys Me' - Goal.com
Michel Platini Slams Real Madrid's 'Excessive' Pursuit Of ...
UEFA president Platini "embarrassed" over Ronaldo, Real Madrid ...
UEFA chief Michel Platini blasts Real Madrid's 拢80m bid for ...

Bitter cookies anyone? peace.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

@ 28,

it is not about bitter cookies.
Platini himself declared at the time that he liked Ronaldo moving to Real Madrid. He does speak frequently about English clubs spending money for transfers in a much higher scale than he does for La Liga clubs. If he was so frequent in criticising Spanish clubs, I'm sure, English media would pick on that and would write about it.

Maybe the Spanish League needs to take a cartel based approach to selling their TV rights like the Premier League does.

In the Premier League, in order to be able to take part, clubs are forced to give their TV rights to the PL. The PL then breaks up all of the 20 clubs fixtures into 6 TV packages, with Sky buying 4/5 of them and another provider (currently ESPN) the remaining 1/2. Sky paid billions for the last deal. The money made from that TV deal is then, in large part, split up evenly between all 20 PL clubs. (On a little sidenote, it would be interesting to see a terrestrial TV channel pick a package up, but considering the costs, its very unlikely).

From what I understand in Spain, the clubs themselves may choose to keep ownership of their own TV rights. Of course, TV broadcasters are willing to pay millions upon millions for the likes of Barca and Real Madrid, but of course not so much for the likes of Hercules and Sociedad. It leaves the smaller clubs fighting for scraps while Barca and Real carry on spending tens of millions to attract the worlds best talent. As we have seen, this is leading the La Liga into a two horse race every season.

Yes the competitive balance isn't as great as it could be in the PL either - but its a damn sight better than it is in Spain at the moment. The business sense is wrong in La Liga. In a league system like the PL and La Liga, every club is interdependent on the other 19 or so compeititors, becuase they all need each other to exist in order to put on a spectacle every week. The PL ensures this happens, (Portsmouth only went on the brink of collapse because of their own financial mismanagement), but in Spain, it seems as if the rules are slowly allowing Real and Barca to put every other team in the league out of business!

Football_UK,

Agreed probably will not have free to air premier league football on the UK again as not enough people want to do anything about it.
I should point out that before I left the UK a couple of years ago, I had never bought sky. Now that I am living abroad I do buy satellite TV (ESPN sports channels with PL are actually included in the basic price which is good) as it's the only way to get english speaking tv. Not sure if/when I return to the UK I'll get sky for the sports though. However if I don't then I won't have any right to complain about no free to air football on tv. I'll either have to buy SKY or get out and convince everyone else not to buy sky to get it back on the 大象传媒 (Please not ITV they ruined PL coverage when the had it and I'm not a great fan of the CL coverage)

Durtbag (#28). Agreed UK media does seem to gloss over Platini's non-UK criticisms. It took me a while of searching to find critisisms of the Ronaldo transfer and the reports generally only had one brief quote. Finding criticism of spanish league will be tricky for the english as most of the coverage will be in spanish and that doesn't show up in a standard UK google search

So to contradict my previous statement slightly maybe the UK media needs to start reporting his non-UK criticisms.

Football_UK,

Platini did criticise the ronaldo transfer in terms of price it just wasn't published very well in the UK media (1 or 2 lines). Instead the UK media focused on UK people saying it was over the top.
The support you refer to was prior to the transfer and was about the way that Real Madrid were going about it. Even then he mentioned finances
From RTEsport website
"United have already had an official complaint against Real rejected by FIFA and now Platini has said the Madrid club's public wooing of the Portuguese players is part and parcel of the game.
Platini told a news conference in Vienna:
'Every club in the world would like to have Ronaldo.'It's part of the system we have today. Players move from club to club and I can understand why Real Madrid want him. They had di Stefano and Puskas in the past, and as Ronaldo is considered one of the best or the best player in the world it's normal. If the club has the finances they can do it so, if they don't have the money they can't.' "

Realistically the public courting of Ronaldo was nothing much more than Man Utd and other British clubs have done over the years. It's not much different to the Barcelona/Fabregas thing either

Football_UK

You are peddling this nonsense again. You will find that the english clubs are very well placed to deal with this, far better than say the milan sides, and hes always accused in this country of favouring italy seeing as he played there. It simply isnt the case.

Real and barca will likely be fine, its clubs run at a huge loss by sugar daddies that will suffer, and to be honest thats tough. Its financial doping and I fear ti will take a milan or something of that ilk to go to the wall before people here accept what hes trying to do is the right thing. Just because he not sky's chief cheerleader dont think he hates people in this country.

any one realise that there is no such thing as, free to air tv in the UK, we still have to pay tv license what ever channel they put football on we still paying for it, the only thing that changes is the price isn't as inflated

I think the financial fairplay rules will be great for Europe, if enforced. It will force the sugar daddy teams to compete more fairly and in fact probably result in those teams not winning as many titles as their owners wish they would. Pure money doesn't always result in pure success. It's footballing institutions, with real fan bases and a recognisable strategy for continuous success that win titles year in year out. Man Utd, Real, Bar莽a, previously Juve and AC Milan. They know how to win, it's in their genes. United may have had a horrible takeover, but few would argue what their success in the 90s was down to. I hope teams like Ajax, with a great academy and recognised style will be able to catch up again under the new rules. I hope that the oligarch funded russian teams, with no fan base or history, will be nipped in the bud before they start unfairly drawing CL money further east. Zenith, CSKA, Dinamo Kiev ok, they have european pedigree, but Teret Grozny and the unpronouncable team that Roberto Carlos just turned up at? Give me a break. And Felipe Scolari was earning millions at a club in Uzbekistan. What on earth is that about? Back at home, Manchester City have made every nouveau riche mistake I can think of. Every single one. Blackburn too, and it's not like they were very marketable to begin with.

I live in Lyon now and Jean Michel Aulas wants to model OL on Arsenal, including the financial aspects. But in his plan to make a giant new stadium with plenty of corporate boxes to make him a fortune, he forgets that Arsenal moved less than a mile. The Stadium of Light, as it will be called, is to be situated miles out of the centre, by the airport. Not very convenient at all, and not likely to be welcomed by the fans.

I also think the Premier League's group selling strategy is excellent, and fair, and the position based prize money guarantees extra incentives not to just try to avoid relegation. I enjoy La Liga, think it's technically far superior but still really fun to watch (Villareal, Atletico, Valencia and Sevilla often serve up great games without the big 2), but I wish they would take a collectivist leaf out of the PL book. I'm sure though the greedy spanish club owners will be looking for all the other more lucrative aspects to the PL success.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"Why show poorer people the games for free? Rich business men don't get anything out of it and surely isn't that what footballs about, making fat cats richer? "

Do you actually have a clue what you're talking about?

You've seemingly missed the entire point of the article, the clubs AREN'T getting richer, infact very very few professional clubs actually break-even, let alone the even fewer number who actually make a profit.

Almost all professional clubs lose money every year, especially in Spain where as previously stated, Barcelona and Real Madrid have a monopoly of the TV rights.

So this isn't about "making fat cats richer lololol", it's about helping clubs which are barely surviving to actually survive.

Phil, just to clarify the 800m would just represent an increase from the 650m which the present deal is worth.
What irritates me is that Barca and Real Madrid currently share 45% of this pot between them. Even under the new deal planned for 2014, their share will still be 34% of total income. Why not start the season with 6 extra points as well?
This financial imbalance allows the top 2 to reach the Champions League each year, which of course opens up another income stream and further distances them from the competition. The result is 2 very exciting clubs playing against some gallant also-rans, who are fighting for the scraps.

By allowing the club's tax debts to grow to gargantuan proportions, the Govt has shot itself in the foot. Already struggling with 20% unemployment, it cannot put La Liga into administration a year before the General Election, but equally it desperately needs that money. In the same way that bonuses have been attacked by governments in banks & institutions that they have 'bailed out', perhaps Spain's government should threaten to get inside clubs and curb pay and bonuses whilst they are coming from our tax euros. That may concentrate the minds of club chairmen?

I agree with all the posters who lay this at the feet of UEFA to resolve the basic inequalities of the way income is distributed. They need to remove the 'candy' of European competition, until the LFP sorts itself out.

Isn't it common sense to question whether the appearance of 3 English clubs in the Champions League semi finals for 2-3 seasons has disturbed a few people in top offices in UEFA and are fighting English clubs?
_________________________________________

Which 'English' football clubs are you writing about? ManU and Chelsea are not English owned. Even Arsenal is 2/3 foreign owned and has very little to do with English even on the field.. Can't compare these with Spanish clubs which are Spanish owned except Malaga and Santander, which are nowhere near CL places.

What should really happen is that the 18 disadvantaged clubs in La Liga should go on strike and refuse to play until the disgracefully unfair TV rights issue which is heavily in favour of Real and Barca is changed. It distorts competition and unless it is changed, it is inconceivable that any club will be able to challenge the Big 2 supremacy in years to come. The Liga will then become a predictable and irrelevant tribal tussle like the Scottish Premier league.

Could you explain why Mallorca finished in a european spot last year but did not get to play in the end? Was that not due to some financial irregularoty

I wonder what people's views are on the possible resurrection of a G14 group launching a Euro super-league should the fair play rules come into effect and, heaven forbid, be enforced?

The clubs discussed, United, Barcelona, Madrid etc, they are all too big to fail. They have huge followings and account for the more interesting cities in Europe, hence they're not going to struggle with fanbases or attracting top players.

Sorry, too big to be allowed to fail I should say...

Phil, seeing as you're the resident "europe" expert, 'd be curious to see your take on the farcical nature of the Belgian competition over the last 2 years
(ridiculous play-off system which completely alienates the fans, constant stream of attempts to overturn lost games/degradation via courts, and even the totally moronic suggestion of letting the average results of the last 3 years determine the teams going down from the first tier)

The Spanish negotiating their own TV deals isn't as unfair as people seem to think - only unfair when you compare what Real Madrid get to what Manchester United get, but that is neither here nor there. Real Madrid's and Barcelona's TV earnings are roughly a third of their income, with match day earnings and commercial revenues making up the rest in roughly equal measure. This is a good business model. Cutting their TV money would mean that they would immediately seek to grow this revenue stream in a bid to equalise all revenues. How would they do that? 39th game in Asia? Press for a European league? The other teams in Spain know that they owe their livelihood to the big two so it's reasonable that each club should get a fair price for their product. Real Madrid and Barcelona started out like any other club and owe their success to the good running of the clubs. Should they share out their ticket sales because they have big stadia or commercial revenues because other clubs can't sell their Levante bed sheets?

In England, only Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea can boast a revenue stream equal to or better than TV money. For other clubs TV money is between two and five times their second biggest revenue source. When clubs get relegated their very existance is under threat. One by one English teams are being sold to foreign investors for a song just to cover the debts.

I think the 3rd to 6th place teams in Spain deserve more money from TV but that's it. The English model is not desireable. Liverpool is a great example of one of the historically elite clubs of Europe being dragged through the mud on the back of financial gambling due to TV money.

Thank you, this was an in-depth coverage of a very important topic in global sports, my question is that Valencia management wanted to play, but were not part of the G-6, why?

palmagreen, Mallorca, due to the poor financial situation at the club, UEFA decided on 22 July 2010 against granting Mallorca the licence to play in the 2010/2011 UEFA Europa League.