Tebas fires broadside at opponents of plan to play Spanish league game in US

By David Owen

October 24 – La Liga President Javier Tebas has hit out at opponents of the Spanish league’s plans to play a top-flight match in the United States later this season, accusing them of “Puritanism”.

In a typically hard-hitting performance at the Sportel sports media convention in Monaco a few days before the matter is due for discussion by the FIFA Council, Tebas said: “I am still asking myself why there is so much resistance. The main reason I think is a cultural reason; also the bureaucracy that the football industry has.”

He went on: “They have created a bureaucratic structure and they don’t want this to change…They don’t care about the future; they want to keep it [the way] it is…This is sporting Puritanism. It is not understanding the industry and this is something that truly worries me.”

The agenda of Friday’s FIFA Council meeting in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, includes an item referred to as ‘Spanish league game outside of Spain in 2018-19 season’, though it looks set to be dominated by discussion of the at least equally contentious proposal for a revamped and expanded Club World Cup.

Tebas indicated earlier this year that he was determined to press ahead, saying “there are some hurdles I am sure we can overcome”. The designated match is thought to be Girona versus Barcelona on January 26. The venue is expected to be in Miami.

In Monaco, the La Liga boss also disclosed that the number of employees retained by the organisation had leapt almost 10-fold in five years to well over 500 and claimed that football was now Spain’s leading export.

Finally, he criticised the two-hour broadcast ban that still pertains in the UK after the traditional kick-off time of 3pm on Saturdays, saying “the reason for this blackout, in my personal opinion, does not exist any more”.

The league’s revenue has grown rapidly in recent years, since its belated move to a collective sales approach for broadcasting rights. According to Deloitte, the success of this approach has been such that “broadcast revenue growth of 20%, following on from 26% growth in the 2015-16 season, has seen collective La Liga revenue increase to a record €2.9 billion in 2016-17.” As a result, the professional services firm continued, “the Spanish league has overtaken the Bundesliga to be the second highest revenue-generating league in the world.”

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