Now then, this is a story the rest of European club football has been awaiting for some time now.
Exclusive: Real Madrid and Barcelona face removal of privileges - European - Football - The Independent
For those unaware of the issue, FCB and Real Madrid, the two biggest football clubs in Spain, Europe and the world have been able to maintain their re-eminence through two main advantages. Firstly, they enjoy member-owned status (along with Bilbao and Osasuna) that was specifically denied to other Spanish clubs and which allows their local governments to subsidise their business operations through preferential tax and land deals.
Yes that should be stopped. All teams should be able to be member owned. However banning it would go against EU regulations as well.. plus considering all German clubs are member owned.. then how would they react?
And the thing about "subsidies" from local government.. everyone does it for **** sake, even the UK. Sure the UK tax man might not be a friend like the Spanish one is, but local government has given land, done rules to please a football club and so on all across the UK. Look at your own team... it got a tax payer funded stadium and massive subsidies to remake it from an athletics stadium to a football stadium. I would also wage that the lease price is considerably lower than the market price. If you are going to ban such things, then it has to be Europe wide.. and that could easily kill football off.
Also not being member owned does not stop "subsidies" from local government. Valencia FC is the king of local government subsidies.. It got its new stadium ground for free as far as I understand.. granted it does not have the money to finish the stadium, but hey. I know Malaga FC got some nice sweet heart deals going with the local government and regional government. A vast training and academy plot has basically been given to Malaga FC.
But yes, any ban on fan owned clubs or discriminatory rule-set must be removed or changed. It should be open to all.
Secondly, they are allowed to negotiate their TV deals separate from all the other clubs in Spain such that the two big boys hoover up the vast majority of TV revenues.
Well that is how the Spanish tv money distrubution system. That is how it is. Barca and Real dont want to be part of any collective sharing. That is their right... I dont agree with the attitude, but it is their right. I dont see the EU or even Spanish government going in to regulate basic contract law for one industry alone because it pisses off some people.
There is structurally no way in the world that any other Spanish or European club can compete with them financially and that is the status that the EU competition commission is looking at.
Jealous?
Man U does well as well.. as does a few other teams that are actually popular in the world. The key here is popularity, not the structure. Real and Barca and Man U and even Liverpool are popular world wide teams with a well known brand. The issue here is a bunch of teams that no one has heard off, suddenly have very wealthy backers and want to be as popular as the 4 named. It has taken Chealski over a decade of massive spending to even get close to their popularity and ability to generate income from selling crap to fans.. and they are still far off relatively speaking.
Like it or not, people want to see Man U, Liverpool (90k spectators at a friendly in Australia), Barca, Bayern and Real and somewhat Chealski now... they dont want to see Everton, Man City, Valencia, PSG, Napoli, Monaco and so on. This comes from history and winning. Chealski went up the ladder because of its CL win, and the others need to do the same.
About time too! The plc and privately-owned football clubs of Europe are under immense financial scrutiny; there's no reason why these patently unfair sweetheart deals that have everything to do with nationalist politics and nothing to do with sport should continue.
And how is that going... not very well.
Napoli spending = near 200 million. Hardly a big club but its private owner has money! In no way does Napoli generate any where near the money to pay for that spending.
Monaco spending = nearing 300 million.. has an average of 8000 people watching per game! Their income is pathetic.. they just got promoted! They will not have an income to meet the financial fair play rules any time soon..
And your own team Man City. 120 million euros so far this year. Considering the rules of break even over 3 years, then you will have to generate a massive amount of profit the next 2 years.. hell the next year to meet those rules. But wait, the rules actually have already been in place for a year, so last years profit should balance it out right.. no wait, last year Man City lost over 90 million. So the next 2 years Man City has to turn a 90 million loss last year into a profit, and not have any more losses. Good luck with that!
The financial fair play rules are not being enforced.. and suddenly UEFA/FIFA wants to go after Real and Barca for things they have been doing for the last 50+ years? Pathetic.
Yes I believe in having a level playing field, and I fully believe that Spanish clubs should all be able to become member run clubs, and I would love to see a better distribution of tv money in Spain but as long as you have the billionaire owned clubs around and they are allowed to spend like there is no tomorrow.. then I dont see it as a priority at all.