The Spanish league will take a long time to recover.

Javier Tebas is the number one problem in the Spanish league

The current president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, has been in charge since 2013. Previously, he served as the organization’s vice president for 12 years. At the time of taking up his current position, Tebas hosted the championship in the ranking of one of the strongest in the world. There were a huge number of stars in La Liga clubs, the leading teams fought continuously for European competitions. In recent years, only Real Madrid has done this.

For 10 years the attendance of the Spanish league has reached an all-time low, and the future of many teams has been called into question due to multiple problems. Under Tebas the league is in sharp decline, and this has repercussions on the signing of new players by the clubs. They are unable to create good conditions for the players, at least in economic terms.

The most significant was the winter transfer window, when La Liga clubs spent a total of €28.2m, 64% less than last year. By comparison, even the clubs mls and Argentina spent the most. And the most expensive team was Espanyol, which paid out 13.2 million euros.

Tebas’ intention is to create the conditions in which clubs can spend what they earn on their own. New investors are attracted by very broad restrictions, while Javier himself has accepted the offer of the fund, which has not been considered either in Italy or in Germany.

With all the economic problems in the league and clubs, Tebas has increased his salary to 4 million euros a year, which is three times more than any head in any other European league. Tebas himself has repeatedly criticized the English Premier League for how much his clubs spend, but at the same time, if you look at the annual salary, then the boss Premier League Alison Britten, it’s only 1 million euros. Meanwhile, the English league easily manages to attract good investors, unlike La Liga.

Barcelona suffer more from Tebas, but other teams are also taking it

Most recently, Javier Tebas spoke at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit and said that Barcelona are short on funds and need to seriously replenish their budget:

As of today, Barcelona have no funds in their budget that they could spend in the next transfer window. Now their budget is minus 200 million euros. They will be able to sign players in the summer if they sell someone for at least that amount.

It is partly due to the new regulations that the Catalans do not register Gavi signing a new contract – the salary cap interferes. According to the Spanish press, the Blaugrana management, led by Laporta, believes that the rules established by Tebas bring absolutely no practical benefits and value, but exist only to complicate life for the clubs in the championship.

So, for example, from the same “Barcelona” you can not get new players without any problems. Around the team for a long time there are a huge number of rumors that they plan to get one or another player. However, Barça did not make a single signing in January.

Under the conditions set by Tebas, Barcelona can only sign new players if they can prove they can earn four times the player’s salary from the player. All the transfers that were made during the summer period were made using various types of economic leverage. Since Laporta’s appointment, the Catalans have actively sold off the club’s assets to achieve a positive balance, but assets are not unlimited.

Other teams have similar problems. Tebas himself notes that only Real Madrid can afford large acquisitions. Neither Barça, nor Atletico with Sevilla, nor anyone else is able to qualitatively strengthen their squad, competing in the transfer market.

The ‘Negreira case’ intensifies

More recently, Spanish prosecutors filed charges against Barcelona, ​​​​​​Josep Bartomeu, Sandro Rossel, Alberto Soler and Oscar Grau in the Negreira case. The proceeding is in the hands of the Investigative Court n. 1 of Barcelona.

All the aforementioned subjects, as well as the football club, have been reported for crimes of business corruption in the form of sports fraud, maladministration and false commercial deeds. The prosecution found the following:

Through Sandro Rossel and Josep Bartomeu, Barcelona reached and maintained confidential communications and various agreements with the defendant Henriques Negreira, who in exchange for money acted in favor of the Catalan team when making refereeing decisions in matches, thus influencing the results of the competition .

If the guilt of the club is proven, Uefa will be able to remove him from participation in European competitions in order to avoid reputational damage to the tournaments. Rules for all three competitions Uefa establish requirements and criteria for the admission of teams to tournaments and emphasize that their participants must not use illegal methods to influence the results of matches at any level.