Perez ‘football is dying’ interview debunked as lies by LaLiga

April 21 – Although the prospect of a breakaway Super League is starting to recede into the distance – for the moment – the wounds are deep and Spain’s LaLiga is not letting some of the statement’s made by Real Madrid’s president Florentino Perez go unanswered.

On Monday evening Perez gave a remarkable interview in Spain claiming that the Super League was “saving” football. In the interview he made a series of claims that, accelerated by the Covid pandemic, public interest in football is dieing with fans deserting stadia, revenues are diminishing (especially broadcast), and TV audiences and the engagement of the 16-24 age-group in particular was disappearing from the game.

Perez gave no facts to back up his incendiary statements but they have now been challenged by LaLiga who immediately conducted an internal piece of research into the claims.

The reality of LaLiga’s research is that, contrary to Perez’s statement that football is losing interest and audiences are falling, cumulative viewing figures (worldwide and by continent) show that LaLiga’s audiences are growing.

It is not an insignificant growth either, ranging from 5% in Europe from 2014/15, to 54% in the Asia Pacific region and a whopping 800% in Africa – overall a 64.7% increase.

Even in Spain, national viewing figures have increased, not least for the big three clubs of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona who saw an increase of 2.4% for their matches in the 2018/19 season and a further 8.6% increase in the 2019/20 season.

Perez’s statement that fans are not going to matches was also debunked with data showing that stadium attendance is up (based on the last time stadiums were open) with a cumulative 1.1 million more spectators in stadiums per season in 2018-19 than in 2014.

Similarly the share of TV money has increased over the same period, point out LaLiga.

Perez’s alternative reality also stretched to entertainment habits of the elusive 16-24 year old age group, who he said were no longer interested in football.

LaLiga’s stats suggest otherwise, showing an increase in their following by 16-24 year olds of 43% since 2018.

LaLiga does concede that consumption habits among 16-24 year olds are changing – not much new in that and would have been the case when Perez was in that age band if he can remember that far back. However, LaLiga’s analysis shows that more young people are watching football in bars for example and that in general the audience size is still equivalent to the actual percentage of 16-24 year olds in the population.

So perhaps the conclusion to be drawn from Perez’s interview is that he should get out more. The often used political PR phrase that ‘perception is reality’ in this case is spectacularly backfiring on Perez.

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