The last transfer market accentuated a very marked trend: the Premier League was once again well above the rest of the leagues, including the Spanish, in investment in transfers. a reality that Javier Gómez, corporate general manager of LaLiga blames the “model based on injecting money at losses” that reigns in English football. The next great battle of the institution chaired by Javier Tebas will be precisely against this model, which “is not sustainable and is going to drag all the rest of us down”. Gómez receives El Periódico de España at the LaLiga headquarters to develop this approach and to talk about the salary limits of the clubs and how the clubs have managed this summer to adjust to them.
Did you fear that the tightening of some clubs with salary limits would leave footballers without being registered in LaLiga?
It’s a fear you have all summer long, but it happens a little bit every summer. When you leave some powerful investments for the end of the market you can get a scare, but in the last two days we already saw that all the clubs were very focused and very aware of what they had to do.
Barça and Betis were the ones who were most in a hurry in the First Division. It seems that the clubs, in general, were more optimistic than expected with their transfer income forecasts.
Yes, I totally agree. In its planning, some club foresaw that it was going to be able to sell a player or that it was going to do it for larger amounts and it has not succeeded.
Perhaps because when you need to sell and potential buyers know it, you are in a disadvantaged position in the market.
Of course, but everything counts here, also your information strategy and how you are giving it. The media have the right and the obligation to give this information and that affects a greater or lesser position of strength of the clubs when it comes to negotiating transfers. That is one of the reasons why LaLiga does not talk about salary limits until the market is over, so as not to give information to third parties.
A third of the total amount of the limits in Primera this season comes from extraordinary movements, such as CVC income, use of equity, capital contributions and Barça’s ‘levers’. Do you foresee a big decrease in salary limits for next season?
The clubs have adapted to the fall in the buying and selling market. Last season sales revenues fell and, although this year they have risen again, we are at 45% of our historical peak, which was approximately 1,100 million euros. There has been a readjustment of the clubs as there are fewer benefits from the transfer of players, while still dragging the burden of pre-pandemic contracts, with a market price that no longer corresponds to reality and that they cannot resolve in a year. The first measure of the clubs was to renegotiate contracts, postponing the collection of amounts, but you cannot do that forever. Next year there will have to be a final readjustment of those contracts. The important thing, in any case, is that the payment obligations will be met at the end of the season and next season should be less harsh than this one. There has been a slowdown, but it is already being reversed and next season will be better.
“Next season there will still have to be one last downward readjustment of player contracts”
Does that mean that the years of ‘fat cows’ in Spanish football are back?
No… You have to put it all together. Television rights have stabilized, they are no longer going to grow at a two-digit rate as they have in recent years, and the market for sales is going to recover. The professional football sector will end up overcoming the pandemic without notable problems, which is already a success after the bomb that has fallen on us. There have been clubs with more difficulties, we have seen Barça, Betis, relegated suffer… But the main message is that we have endured this situation, that payment obligations have been met and that there have been no complaints from players or non-payments to the Treasury .
There are a dozen teams between First and Second whose wage bill still exceeds its limit. That is, they spend more than they should. Does that call into question the effectiveness of the system?
Everything can be improved, this is not a panacea… We started with economic control with 23 clubs in bankruptcy proceedings and for that time it was worth it, the data shows it. No one foresaw a pandemic, of course, and in this situation we have had to readapt the system so as not to collapse the market. Exceeded clubs can continue signing while the differential decreases and next season they will also do so, although there will always be some exceeded, especially those that descend to Second. We are not in a hurry, our obligation was not to derail the train, but not to stop it either. We have to keep thinking about whether we need to add anything else. It is now when the possible changes that can be carried out are put on the table, with the clubs.
“Nobody foresaw a pandemic: we have had to readapt the control system so as not to collapse the market”
And what do you think needs to change?
We have to keep changing things, perhaps we have to consider whether we should develop the generic mandate that we have as an institution that we must guarantee the long-term survival of the clubs. See if we can develop the norm and go beyond the economic control one year ahead a single year to monitor more specifically two or three years ahead.
How to limit the increase in wages in contracts, for example? That a player cannot collect a million one year, the next three and the next seven.
There are already measures that go in that direction, but perhaps they have to be complemented, analyzing how each club is going to fare in future seasons when assigning the limit for each season. At the moment, we are already evaluating the renewals based on their fit in the salary limit of the following seasons, not only those carried out from January, as has been the case until now.
Barça and Madrid foresee ordinary income of a similar amount for the 2022/23 season. However, Madrid has a salary limit of almost 700 million and, as explained by Javier Tebas, Barça will have to reduce it to 400 and something for the following season. How is that explained?
In the first place, Tebas only endorsed what the Barcelona vice president had already said, and he said so. He didn’t really give any new information. In any case, the difference is that Madrid has a healthy balance sheet and can pull from its net worth: it has accumulated solvency or wealth and can use it. Barça currently has a seasonal limit and is not stable based on selling assets. If there are no more ‘levers’, you will have to reduce it. It is that simple and obvious.
Barça has adjusted to the legal regulations, but has it broken the spirit of the law with the movements it has made this summer?
The spirit of the rule in the end is that everyone pays their obligations. LaLiga is not a judicial administrator, the clubs have business freedom and decide their strategies. The norm was not foreseen for this type of operations that Barça has carried out, but the principle that LaLiga does not re-audit has been preserved. If an auditor approves these economic operations, LaLiga does not discuss it, unless one of them goes against the norm, which has not been the case. The members of each club are the ones who will have to assess the consequences that these strategies of their directors may have.
“The norm was not foreseen for Barça’s ‘levers’, but the principle that LaLiga does not re-audit has been preserved”
Does LaLiga believe that Barça has exceeded selling assets to build its squad? Have they been short-termists in their strategy?
We will have to see it. I don’t know what the plan is behind that strategy. Time will tell us, in two or three years we will see if it is successful. I hope it is.
Is Real Madrid the great European club that has best dealt with the pandemic?
Definitely. It has not had losses in recent seasons and the data confirms that it is a proportionate and healthy club. The pandemic has affected him, like everyone else, he has lost a lot of income and also with the reform of the Bernabéu underway, but he has been able to adjust his sports and non-sports structure. The data is incontestable.
Isak, Casemiro, Diego Carlos, Guedes, Estupiñán… Is the Premier League de facto becoming a Super League?
There are two models. One, that of the Premier League, based on injecting money into losses, which implies dragging the rest of the clubs and inflating the market, making certain clubs unsustainable. In fact, France and Italy also lose a lot of money. And the other model is that of Spain, autonomously sustainable, thanks to the fact that we go to the ‘old woman’s account’: I have four and I spend four.
But the two models are coexisting…
The Premier model is dragging the sustainability model, which is also defended by UEFA, and that cannot be maintained. UEFA can only control clubs that compete in European competitions, but not the rest. We will have to develop a system so that this stops happening, because it will end up dragging us all down.
But as long as that happens, the Premier is plundering LaLiga.
Well, but we can review who has won the European competitions in the last decade, or in the recent period that you prefer. LaLiga is first and in the end what matters is the goal and the sporting victory.
True, but in Spain only two teams have signed a player for 25 million euros or more (Real Madrid and Barcelona), while in England, 14 have done so.
There is a mismatch that will harm models based on being sustainable. And they have more money, yes, but they are also paying premium prices for it.
Do you find support in other European leagues with this speech?
That’s where we are.
Is it the next big battle that LaLiga is going to fight?
Yes, in the medium and long term it is one of the most important battles. Faced with endless money, not only from club-states, but from entire leagues, it becomes much more difficult to compete.
“In the face of endless money, not only from club-states, but from entire leagues, it becomes much more difficult to compete.”
But how can they fight that battle? In the end, the Premier is an autonomous and independent competition with its own rules.
The role of UEFA is vital there. Although it can only limit the clubs that play in Europe, doing so will end up dragging the rest of the Premier clubs. And as important as developing regulations is enforcing them: in the Premier they have a rule that establishes that the three-year deficit cannot exceed 108 million pounds and it is evident, with the data in hand, that it is not being complied with.
How do you explain that Spanish teams remain competitive in Europe when the Premier has made a net investment in transfers 3.4 times higher in the last five years?
The data and the reality are those. We are the cradle of football and, when there are difficulties, the clubs look for resources in other markets, betting on the academy… There is no more. Look at Segunda, there are clubs with a real squad of 17 million euros that compete against others with one of six. And many times the six wins. Money is important, but there are other elements that also influence. It is not the essential element.
