There is a key character in Leo Messi’s farewell to Barcelona: his name is Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga, the Spanish Serie A which with its stringent rules prevented the renewal of the contract with the Argentine ace. In short, each club in La Liga has a maximum spending ceiling and that of Barça has gone from 656.43 million to 347 million (between salaries and purchases). At first sight it is a “virtuous” norm capable of imposing a salary cap to companies, as many hope when observing the rubble of football devastated by Covid.
But it was precisely this last consideration that irritated Barcelona and, by the way, the other great Spanish club, Real Madrid: why not consider the effects of the pandemic on club budgets and their spending capacities as a percentage? Here the doubt that feeds the case arises, given that according to the Spanish football federation, the Rfef, Tebas would be acting as the guarantor for the investment funds that recently entered the Liga, instead of protecting the companies that make up the top flight. “The future of all Spanish football is terrible, fantastic for a fund and other possible beneficiaries,” wrote the federation, commenting on Real Madrid’s intention to take legal action to prevent the entry of the CVC fund at 10 percent for the next 50 years in exchange for 2.7 billion euros. A boon for the smaller clubs, a disgrace for the big ones.
But this is an incorrect reading according to the RFF: “The agreement increases inequality and makes it impossible for the format of professional football competition in Spain to evolve, making it petrified without the possibility of development except by the decision of an external third party, in clear violation of the law and of the European sports model ».
These are words that we have already heard in recent months when addressing the Superlega topic that saw Barça and Real in the front row, together with Juventus, with Milan and Inter on the sidelines, ready to take a step back together with six English clubs that are not in the crisis only thanks to the Premier TV contract.
What matters is that Tebas managed to pass the sale to the funds in Spain, but not only: he had tried to export the project to Italy, where the funds were blocked by the timely action of seven Serie A clubs: Atalanta. , Fiorentina, Inter, Juventus, Lazio, Naples and Verona. Udinese? On the sidelines, even if in the last meetings before the stop he had pushed to collect the 1.7 billion proposed by the funds of the CVC-Advent-Fsi consortium. For a provincial company in Italy, is it better to have an egg now or a chicken tomorrow?
It is one of the questions that leave us the entry of funds, the pandemic and the Messi affair, ended up playing for the emir based in Paris in the face of the salary cap and financial fair-play. Because Uefa president Ceferin is the great absent of these days.