August 24 – Florentino Pérez is not a man to be held hostage. After rebelling against the CVC-La Liga agreement, the Real Madrid club president has opened negotiations with JP Morgan for a deal of his own.
When La Liga announced the investment from private equity firm CVC last week, Real Madrid were quick to condemn the offer, saying that it would launch civil and criminal lawsuits against the president of La Liga Javier Tebas and the chief of CVC Capital Partners Javier de Jaime Guijarro.
Now, with the CVC deal approved by Spanish clubs, Perez (pictured) is moving in search of a better deal, according to El Confidencial, starting talks with American bank JP Morgan.
The bank is already well-known to Perez as it was providing the finance behind the launch of the European Super League, but the was left red-faced when the project spectacularly imploded within 48 hours after a tsunami of protests and discontent in the football industry and from fans.
In a rare mea culpa, the investment bank said it “misjudged” the deal for the breakaway league. JP Morgan had committed more than $4 billion in debt finance over 23 years to the 12 founding teams of the league.
El Confidencial reports that JP Morgan wants to step to offer an alternative to the CVC/La Liga deal but with better conditions. CVC is injecting La Liga and Spain’s second division with €2.1 billion in cash in return for 10% of the commercial rights over the next 50 years. Tebas denied that the money was a lifeline for clubs ravaged by the Covid-19 crisis but rather an investment in a digitally driven business platform to expand LaLiga and its clubs globally.
Real Madrid and Barcelona objected to the deal as they would rather pursue their own substantial and somewhat desperate financial needs away from a collective Spanish fund-raising agreement that might dilute their cash take in favour of principles of football solidarity and a greater Spanish football good.
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