The league
The three clubs offer an agreement with another investor “that would save 12.2 billion euros and only includes commitments for 25 years, and not for 50”
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic have proposed to the rest of the professional football clubs a financing alternative “with infinitely better costs and terms” than those of CVC after the agreement negotiated with this investment fund by the president of LaLiga, Javier Thebes, which must be ratified on the 10th in general assembly. Through their presidents, Florentino Pérez, Joan Laporta and Aitor Elizegi, Madrid, Barça and Athletic, three of the only four clubs that are not public limited companies, have sent a letter to the other 39 First and Second Division entities in which they make “a call for reflection in order to allow clubs to solve their financial problems in a rational and sustainable way, without incurring serious irregularities or weighing down the future of Spanish football for half a century.”
Compared to the 13,100 million euros that would be the total financial cost of the ‘LaLiga Impulso Project’, “which would be supported by Spanish clubs for 50 years” in exchange for an investment of 2,000 million by CVC to get 10% of the professional football business, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic present a ‘Sustainable Project’, with a cost of only 900 million over 25 years. “With a real and total cost for the clubs of around 2.5% and 3% per year” and with the same investment by the funders of the plan advocated by these three clubs. “The 2,000 million euros, moreover, would be paid in full to the clubs in the first year, without any division,” guarantee Florentino, Laporta and Elizegi. “Consequently, ‘Sustainable Project’ would allow Spanish clubs to save 12,200 million euros, being a proposal 15 times cheaper that, in addition, only includes commitments for 25 years, and not for 50”, the letter also said the Higher Sports Council (CSD) and Javier Tebas.
“It turns out that it is Anas Laghrari (CEO of Key Capital and the Superliga disaster) that Florentino Pérez sends to make a proposal with such ignorance of the legal and financial situation of LaLiga clubs that it is unfeasible. They seek confusion and continue managing from the bar, “was the reaction of Thebes. “Now Florentino Pérez ‘remembers’ the LaLiga clubs (those with uninteresting matches) and that he ignored when he was preparing the Super League,” the president of the club’s employers’ association wrote ironically, insisting that “the operation of CVC is an investment operation with an industrial partner, not a financing one.
“Ruinous Terms” and “Serious Irregularities”
The offer to the clubs that Real Madrid has promoted is advised by Key Capital Partners, one of Florentino Pérez’s consultants, who already participated in the ACS and Atlantis takeover of Abertis. According to the top leader of the white club and his counterparts at Barça and Athletic, with the ‘Sustainable Project’ “the direct ownership of the clubs over audiovisual rights is not violated”, “accounting structures and concepts are not used for artificial purposes “And” no entity outside the world of football is granted any participation in the management and governance of LaLiga. ”
Last August, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic already opposed, like Oviedo, the ‘LaLiga Impulse Project’, ‘now reformulated in equally ruinous terms for Spanish football and, furthermore, not exempt from serious irregularities (both in form and substance). ‘ “It would be irresponsible for us not to explore the viability of rational and sustainable alternatives before making any irreparable decisions,” say Florentino, Laporta and Elizegi.
“At this precise moment in history, in which global financial markets offer unique opportunities to finance long-term projects in a sustainable way, we have a duty to oppose an operation such as the one proposed by LaLiga with CVC that, economically , it would weigh down the future of our football », insists in the letter transferred to the other presidents of professional football. «It is obvious that LaLiga can – and must – carry out the contracts that are necessary to maximize its growth potential, but it must do so with its own means, without renouncing its independence, without losing full ownership of its business and without clubs mortgaging their economic future ”, claim the detractors of the operation with the British fund CVC.
LaLiga accuses them of “breaking the consensus and generating uncertainty”
“The so-called ‘Sustainable Project’ is one more attempt to break the consensus and generate uncertainty with the sole objective of continuing to safeguard the selfish interests of a few against the common benefit of the majority,” Javier Tebas lamented this Friday in another letter sent to all clubs. “Let’s not forget that the letter (from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic) is led by the president of Real Madrid, who barely six months ago declared that we were ‘ruined’, that our games were not interesting and that it was inevitable that audiovisual rights of our competition will go down. The objective of your letter, as then, is none other than to generate uncertainty in this case to affect the operation that we will vote on next day 10, “added the president of LaLiga.
In their argument, the club’s employers’ association emphasizes that the ‘Sustainable Project’ is signed “by the three clubs that are trying to derail the ‘Impulse Project’, proposing an alternative that they themselves are not going to take either because their interest is capital and not debt for develop your Superliga project ». «The Sustainable Project is not a binding proposal, not even indicative of financing by the finalist investors, since it is not signed by the banks or the investors and, therefore, there is no commitment on the part of Bank of América, JP Morgan or HSBC does not contain a worked plan. It is merely a conceptual approach from a boutique called Key Capital, the same one that worked on the failed Super League project, described by the European Commission on November 28 as a threat to the sports model by undermining the principles of inclusion and equity, and There is no evidence that it is supported and / or approved by the corresponding internal committees of the entities to which it refers, which DO NOT subscribe to the proposal, “LaLiga recalled.
.