The employers alert the clubs of the proposal promoted by the promoters of the “failed” Super League project
Thebes: “It is one more attempt to break the consensus and generate uncertainty to safeguard the selfish interests of a few”
MADRID, 3 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
LaLiga has described as a “conceptual approach” the ‘Sustainable Project’ promoted by Athletic Club, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid as an alternative to LaLiga Impulso, and has warned professional clubs that it is a “debt operation” and that it would mortgage their rights audiovisuals for the next 25 years.
In a letter sent by the president of LaLiga, to which Europa Press has had access, to professional clubs, after the one previously sent by Athletic, Barça and Madrid, Javier Tebas stressed that the latter “is not a binding or indicative proposal. “Financing from JP Morgan, Bank of America and HSBC.
“It is just a conceptual approach of a boutique called Key Capital, which worked on the failed Super League project, and is not signed by banks or investors,” says Tebas, who denounced that it is an alternative presented “very biased” and “financially imprecise”.
For the president of LaLiga, they are presenting a project “that is not directly comparable” with LaLiga Impulso, since Sustainable Project “is a debt operation” with a fixed return for lenders that, unlike the CVC venture capital fund , they do not get involved in the project.
In this sense, LaLiga sources told Europa Press that both FC Barcelona and Athletic Club have stated that they are not interested in taking on debt, and are interested in receiving capital, such as the one proposed in the Sustainable Project that they have presented together with the Real Madrid. “It is difficult to understand why they propose for the other clubs what they do not want for theirs,” they pointed out.
On the other hand, Tebas alerted the clubs that the numbers shown are intended to “distort” the message, comparing the current investment of the CVC Funds with the aggregate of the ‘cash flow’ accumulated in 50 years, assuming “very aggressive growth hypotheses” and “ignoring the time value of money.”
In an optimistic scenario, they assume a cumulative annual growth of 10 percent, which would mean that LaLiga’s television rights would be more than 193,000 million euros within 50 years. “That would mean that they would have multiplied by 107 times, while the GDP will have multiplied by 3.4 times,” he compared.
In this “impossible scenario”, Tebas pointed out, CVC would earn 168,639 million euros, but that the clubs would have entered almost 2 billion (1,875,595 million), 20 percent of the current GDP in Spain. “This comparison alone disqualifies any other aspect of this report, because it is not a serious analysis of possible alternatives, it is only an attempt to destroy the future of the competition and the clubs in order to develop their Superliga project,” he added .
In addition, Sustainable Project is subject to the individual consent of the creditors of the clubs, while LaLiga Impulso, approved unanimously by the LaLiga Delegate Commission, not because CVC funds are contributed to the employer and the latter transfers them to the clubs. .
Likewise, this project implies, according to LaLiga, transferring 100 percent of the TV rights to another company that has a preferential right and the clubs lose control of them for 25 years.
“THE IMPULSE LEAGUE IS NOT A FINANCING PROJECT”
LaLiga Impulso “is not a financing project”, designed with the advice of firms of “maximum prestige and reputation”, with a “solid structure” and that enables incorporation as a CVC partner,
with extensive experience in the sports and technological field due to its alliance with Formula 1 and MotoGP.
LaLiga is experiencing a sharp drop in the number of television subscribers in Spain, while the new entertainment platforms (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney +, HBO) reach record numbers of subscribers, so a business transformation is necessary to reverse the trend and ensure future growth.
For LaLiga this transformation can only be done with long-term capital that allows investment, not with debt that “further stifles” the financial situation of the clubs.
Sustainable Project is another “attempt to break the consensus and generate uncertainty to safeguard the selfish interests of a few against the benefit of the majority,” according to the letter to the Tebas clubs, who denounced that “they are trying to derail” LaLiga Impulso.
“Let’s not forget that the letter is led by the president of Real Madrid who barely six months ago declared that we were ‘ruined’, that our matches were not interesting and that it was inevitable that the audiovisual rights of our competition would go down. The objective of this letter it is none other than generating uncertainty to affect the operation that we will vote on on the 10th “, concluded the president of LaLiga.