Clubs’ competitive potential would be hit for various years: says La Liga President Tebas

 

Armstrong Vas

The global corona virus crisis is going to severely affect the European clubs’ competitive potential over the next few years, says La Liga President Javier Tebas.

Spain, which has given football the tiki-taka version of the game, has many of its coaches plying their trade across various leagues throughout the world including Qatar. The country is dependent on football in multiple ways and the crisis has not only affected the clubs but hit the wider economy in the Iberian country.

Spain earns 1.67% of its Gross Domestic Product from football and the COVID-19 outbreak is having is its impact in a country where over 1.5 million people earn their livelihood - either directly or indirectly - from the world’s most beautiful game.

“I won’t go as far as saying that clubs would be thrown into crisis because our financial controls are very robust, but clubs’ competitive potential would be hit for various years. 28% of the television broadcast contracts revenue, amounting to more than €500 million, is still up in the air,” said Tebas.

La Liga, which suspended its competition until the emergency is dealt with, will be part of UEFA’s core committee charged with redrawing the European football calendar. The commission is made up of three UEFA members, three ECA (European Club Association) members, La Liga and the Premier League. 

“If we look at the industry as a whole, all 30 European leagues together, €7.5 billion is at risk due to this crisis. That would be the cost of not being able to complete every competition. It would put the football industry at risk in some places. That’s why we need a global solution. It’s a problem that affects us all and all the competitions need to be coordinated,” he added, when asked about the potential financial losses that La Liga clubs could suffer in the near future.

On a possible restart for competitions in Europe he said: “Given the current situation we believe we can restart the competitions in mid-May, perhaps during the third week. If circumstances permit, we could bring that forward. There are 30 affected leagues, 30 cup tournaments, and we have to coordinate each schedule at both a national and international level. We need to work together.”

Tebas said some of the European leagues are working in tandem to tight over the crisis.

“We are working with leagues such as Serie A in Italy, who have 14 games still to play, or the Danish league, who have 15 left to play. UEFA’s decision to postpone Euro 2020 will help us find a way to finish our competitions. We made our calendar calculations even before the decision to postpone it. We knew we could work something out and we’re now looking at different restart dates. We have to work in reverse, as it were, looking at the latest date we could start playing to work out other options,” he said.

In light of UEFA’s decision to officially postpone Euro 2020, Tebas said: “It’s not wishful thinking, it’s the reality: the competitions can finish in June. We said it before they postponed the European Championships until 2021, and now we have even more reason to say it.”