The new Premier League TV deal spells bad news for Spanish football.
La Liga president Javier Tebas has warned that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi could move to England after the new Premier League TV rights deal.
Between them, Sky and BT have paid a record £5.136bn to show live Premier League football between 2016 and 2019 and Tebas fears that Spain will suffer from such a windfall to English clubs.
“Well yes I think so,” he responded when asked if Ronaldo and Messi could leave
“We have a serious problem, and we won’t be the best league in a year.
“We’re going to lose a lot of value in the market because the Premier league is going to snap up all of the global TV competition and contracts.”
Currently, each Spanish club is allowed to negotiate its own TV deal – which benefits the big hitters like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid – but Tebas feels that collective bargaining is the only solution to stop La Liga becoming a “fifth-level competition.”
“Unless we urgently move towards centralised TV rights sales, Spanish football is going to have a very serious problem,” Tebas added.
“Economically we’ll end up with a fifth-level competition.”
