Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, during a basketball team game last February.
After a hectic day, in which it seemed that everything was smiling at LaLiga with the announcement of the agreement with CVC to irrigate the clubs with 2,700 million euros, now the hangover arrives. And it seems that it will bring sharp headaches. Real Madrid, one of the flagship clubs of the Spanish competition, has issued a statement this Thursday in which it opposes the agreement reached. "Real Madrid will convene the assembly of compromise partners to discuss the agreement and the significant unprecedented losses in our 119-year history," he said in the note. And Barcelona, the other great liner in the league, did the same with another note hours later to stress that the operation has not been sufficiently contrasted with the clubs.
The agreement between LaLiga and CVC, if it is ratified in the Club Assembly on August 12, would mean the economic injection of 2,667.5 million in exchange for 11% of the business.
A money desired by some teams to overcome the financial straits left by the coronavirus, but with long-term conditions that do not convince another part of the members of the association chaired by Javier Tebas, led by the two big ones.
More information
The CVC fund injects 2,700 million euros into LaLiga for 11% of its business
Messi leaves Barcelona
How much money will each club receive from the economic injection agreed between LaLiga and CVC?
The main obstacle is that the money would reach the clubs in the form of a loan (with an interest below the market, according to LaLiga, but that will have to be repaid). Therefore, the final value paid by the fund for 11% of the competition's business will be much lower. In practice, it means advancing money, which would be the only slice of the operation for the clubs, but in the long run it would be detrimental to their economies.
“The negotiation has been done without a competitive process and the economic conditions agreed with the CVC fund give it returns of more than 20% per year. This same opportunist fund is the one that tried, without success, similar agreements with the Italian and German leagues ”, Real Madrid emphasizes in its official statement. In this way, he makes his position clear and understands that the benefits of the agreement are not so many. As stated by the team chaired by Florentino Pérez, this fund has already negotiated similar agreements with the Italian and German leagues and none came to fruition. And he was also one of those interested in financing the Super League, in which Real Madrid was one of the founders and promoters, a project that did not bear fruit either.
Both the white team and the culé also criticize that the agreement has been closed without their participation. Real Madrid also adds that it has only known part of the terms of the contract on Thursday, not in its entirety, according to its note. "Real Madrid cannot support an operation that gives investors the future of 42 First and Second Division clubs and the future of the clubs that will qualify during these 50 years," he adds. The same line in which Barça is pronounced: “It has not been sufficiently contrasted with the clubs (owners of TV rights), its amount is not congruent with the years of duration and that part of the audiovisual rights of all are affected clubs for the next 50 years ”.
On television rights, LaLiga insisted in the presentation that CVC would not have management or marketing capacity, although on this point there are also discrepancies.
It is true that the agreement leaves out the management of these rights, but the fund would receive the corresponding part of what this sale generates, which causes friction.
In other words, it would keep almost 11%, which is the share that it would have from the new company to which all LaLiga activity is transferred, including the contracts for broadcasts.
Distrust in Barcelona
“The clubs have transferred the audiovisual rights exclusively for their commercialization under a competitive regime and for a period of three years. This agreement, using a deceptive structure, expropriates from the clubs 10.95% of their audiovisual rights for 50 years and against the law ”, settles Real Madrid. This joint negotiation of television rights is also governed by a decree-law, approved in 2015, which allows these agreements to be made on behalf of the clubs, but only for three years. The entity that Joan Laporta has chaired for a few months insists on this question and states that he condemns the future of the club: “It is inappropriate to sign a half-century contract given the uncertainties that always surround the world of football.The conditions of the contract that LaLiga is talking about condemn the future of FC Barcelona in terms of audiovisual rights ”.
In the Camp Nou offices, from the first hour, they were already sliding that the pact did not finish fitting either. This was striking, since at first it seemed the key element to balance his accounts and unravel the continuity of Leo Messi. However, it seems that it has ended up being the trigger for the culé team to be left without the Argentine, as announced by Barça on Thursday afternoon on its Twitter account. Just the day when everything pointed to the announcement of the signing of his new contract, the opposite has happened: the divorce has been certified. Something that the club blames Tebas in a veiled way: “Despite having reached an agreement between FC Barcelona and Leo Messi and with the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today,It cannot be formalized due to economic and structural obstacles (Spanish LaLiga regulations) ”, explains the culé team in an official statement.
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Leo Messi will not follow linked to the FC Barcelona
- FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) August 5, 2021
This element, which is closely related to the possibility of giving the green light to the agreement with the CVC fund or leaving it on paper, strains relations between the club and the association.
Thus, by removing the leaves of the daisy and positioning itself against the economic injection, as Real Madrid had already done, it is a setback for LaLiga and will make it very difficult for the operation to be ratified on August 12, since the yes of 32 of the 42 First and Second clubs.
And the two great giants of the competition have a lot of towing capacity over the rest.
LaLiga, for its part, confirms compliance with the legal system in all dimensions of the LaLiga Impulso project. And he also attacks the white team: “LaLiga is not worried about a possible legal action by Real Madrid, since it was a predictable reaction given the club's trajectory of opposing head-on and demanding any strategic project that represents progress and momentum. of the competition and its clubs, ”he says in a statement also published on Thursday afternoon. To which he adds: "The reinforcement for LaLiga that this strategic operation implies will benefit Spanish football as a whole, including Real Madrid, as one of the main representatives of football in the world." The battle between now and next Thursday is served.
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