La Liga boss Javier Tebas slams Premier League for spending

Inflationary spending

Javier Tebas has slammed the Premier League’s inflationary spending and found praise for the Bundesliga in the process. For the president of the Spanish League Association, there is only one explanation for how English top division clubs could afford a transfer deficit of 1.36 billion euros this summer: the check books of the owners.

“The turnover of the Premier League is 1.8 times higher than that of LaLiga or Bundesliga, but the transfer deficit is more than 20 times higher than that of the Spanish league, which has a good financial control system,” said Tebas when presenting the new one LaLiga club budget limits.

The Premier League became the first division to break the 2 billion mark in transfer spending in the summer. Investments of 2.25 billion faced income of 891 million euros – the bottom line was a minus of 1.36 billion euros. LaLiga’s transfer deficit is 55 million euros, while the Bundesliga even achieved a plus of 45 million euros in the transfer market. “Something doesn’t make sense here, so what’s going on here? Clubs like Manchester City pull out their check books (…) The club owners use their money to compensate for the clubs’ losses,” said Tebas.

The 60-year-old, who has been in office since 2013, took tough action last year and ensured, among other things, that even heavyweights like FC Barcelona were no longer able to shop at will. “Do we want unsustainable models? What happens when owners stop spending? We could let the sheikhs and big companies buy the clubs. PSG can get more money whenever they want to buy new players.”

Tebas is worried about football because “there’s a lot more money in it now. If there is no control, we endanger the whole football business.” For the Costa Rican native, “LaLiga and the Bundesliga are the two most sustainable competitions and we really have to fight for sustainability. Ten years ago we weren’t like the Bundesliga, but we are now.” Tebas wants to talk to UEFA about the financial management of the Premier League and its inflationary fees in order to ensure sustainability in Europe.

“If we were to do it in Spain so that rich people could buy our clubs, then that’s an option, but we’d rather have a sustainable league – like the Bundesliga,” said Tebas, who doesn’t want to allow Spanish Clubs indebted to compete in the transfer market.

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