MADRID, 30 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The former footballer and president of Kosmos and the Kings League, Gerard Piqué, assured that, with the current football model, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are “on the path to not being able to compete in Europe in five years”, due to the lack of homogeneity of the financial rules between the different national leagues, as well as because Barcelona and Merengues “are getting into debt.”
“It cannot be that there are 70-80 games a year, people no longer even know what is being played, there are a thousand competitions that people miss. And footballers get injured much more. They should all get together to make a schedule of fewer games and more ‘premium’, to consume higher quality football,” said Piqué during the Business Sport Forum organized by Marca y Expansión.
However, for the former player the solution is not the European Super League proposed by the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, supported by others such as Joan Laporta. “It is a closed league, and I am against that. There are many who are going to be left out and their value becomes zero, you lose followers. The national leagues would no longer exist, while the Super League teams would grow,” he explained.
“An important part of football as we understand it would be destroyed. If you reduce the calendar, you continue competing and the sporting results depend, you do not suddenly cut off progression. Sporting merit has to prevail, and that is why I am against the Super League,” argument.
However, he reiterated that current football needs “changes”, he does not know if they are “drastic” and in the “short term”, or if they will be “more patches to try to continue.” “Barça and Real Madrid, who have already demonstrated it and have expressed it actively and passively, are trying with the Super League at least for people to realize it and for the big federations, such as UEFA and FIFA, to realize realize that they cannot continue with this line,” he supported.
“Others in Europe who at the time promoted the Super League movement then backed away simply because in England the entire country mobilized, because they love the Premier League. They didn’t want it to happen, they got scared and backed down, but all of them” ‘largest countries’ in Europe are wishing to be able to do something like this. It is evident,” he assured, convinced.
And Piqué focused on the heterogeneous economic control in the different European national leagues. “LaLiga has a very strict financial ‘Fair Play’ and there are other leagues that have a very different one. In addition, you have a European competition in which you compete against all these teams that are not regulated. Because they talk about financial ‘Fair Play’, but then they look the other way, because it interests them on a political level,” he commented.
“As there is no strict regulation, you are exposed to clubs with countries behind increasingly raising your salaries and using other means that can pay the players without the club paying them. Thus, Barça and Madrid could not be able to compete. I don’t want to be pessimistic in the least, and I hope it changes, but we are going down a path that in five years Barça and Madrid will not be able to compete in Europe,” he added.
In addition, he criticized the economic distribution of television rights in LaLiga. “Two billion euros are received that are distributed among the teams and there are clubs that, due to the audience, it does not make any sense for them to receive that money. It is an injustice, I understand perfectly that a Barça or Madrid arrive and raise their hand and say ‘I don’t think so.’ well, because there are many teams that are living off of us,'” he said.
Finally, he defended that “it is impossible for you to spend 90 minutes locked in a room watching just a soccer game,” because consumer habits have changed. “It doesn’t make any sense. Today’s children don’t do it anymore, neither do I. It’s a different way of consuming. I think sports, especially soccer, have to adapt to it,” he concluded.