Real Madrid, Athletic and Barcelona have sent an Open Letter to the rest of the professional clubs defending their Sustainable Project, also replying to the last letter from Javier Tebas in which he tried to dismantle his proposal. The president of LaLiga has responded by sending one more letter. There are already several that the two parties have crossed in recent days. A real war of writing to defend the two financing projects presented.
The LaLiga Assembly votes on the 10th the Impulse Project proposed by the LaLiga itself Tebas, a financing of 2,000 million euros, provided in four years by the CVC fund, in exchange for the sale of 11% of the image and television rights of the clubs in the next 50 years. At Sustainable project that defends Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic, those 2,000 million liquidity are obtained through a kind of loan to be repaid in 25 years (with a cost of almost 900 million euros). In the baseline scenario, the cost of Proyecto Impulso for the clubs is around 13,000 million, although it is CVC that bears the risk of the operation.
THE OPEN LETTER FROM MADRID, BARÇA AND ATHLETIC.
In this last Open Letter from Real Madrid, Barça and Athletic, the promoters of Sustainable Project They reiterate the fraud of the Law that supposes, in his opinion, the LaLiga plan, and they talk about three advantages of their plan with respect to that of Tebas, but they also charge hard against the model of financial control that LaLiga is exercising on the clubs. “While neighboring countries relaxed their economic control rules due to the pandemic, in order to provide their clubs with the essential financial oxygen, here, on the contrary, faced with such an unfortunate situation, a financially ruinous project (the Thebes project) was linked ”, they say.
Regarding the advantages of Sustainable Project versus Impulse Project, the promoters of the first list three.
1) “In the economic plane it would be extraordinarily more attractive to clubs. According to the base case presented by La Liga, Sustainable Project would allow clubs to save more than 12,000 million euros, being a proposal 15 times cheaper and that, in addition, only includes commitments for 25 years, and not for 50 ”.
2) “In the legal plan It is a fully legal proposal, as it is structured directly by the clubs without the direct participation of La Liga. In this way, the ownership of the clubs over audiovisual rights is not violated, the rights of any third party (including clubs of lower categories and creditors) are not harmed, and commercial structures and accounting concepts are not used for artificial purposes ”.
3) “In the plane of government corporate does not confer on any entity outside the world of football any participation in the management and governance of La Liga (an issue that, furthermore, would also be irregular in the legal sphere) ”.
“It is not necessary to waste 12,000 million euros to have the capacity to grow,” Real Madrid, Barça and Athletic tell the rest of the clubs in their open letter. “All this in an artificial way and constituting a clear fraud of the law.” And they go further about the fraudulent nature of the operation, they say, proposed by Tebas with CVC: “It is unheard of, and very worrying, that the President of La Liga in certain cases induces clubs to potentially act fraudulently against their creditors with guarantees of their audiovisual rights. It has stated, even in writing, that the La Liga Impulso Project can be carried out without such consent. It is not true. The structure of the operation proposed by La Liga includes an implicit and indisputable transfer of audiovisual income from the clubs to the fund (given that the clubs agree to reduce said income for many years and transfer it to the fund in exchange for receiving financing); therefore, the execution of the operation without the consent of the corresponding creditors would in such cases be a fraudulent scheme ”.
“As we pointed out in our letter on December 2,” say Real Madrid, Barça and Athletic, “We are fully aware of the financial situation suffered by the Spanish football sector, materially aggravated by the Covid pandemic. Sustainable Project aims to help clubs regain economic momentum, facilitating liquidity in market terms based on rational structures. And we are willing to work in that direction, either with our proposal or with any other that, from the law, yields similar benefits ”.
Fierce criticism of LaLiga’s way of proceeding.
As a novel element with respect to previous writings, Madrid, Barça and Athletic openly criticize the harshness with which LaLiga exercises financial control over the clubs at this time of difficulty due to the drop in income derived from the crisis caused by the pandemic. But also, They explain how the clubs accepted this proposal from Thebes in August, conditional on the belief that it was the only valid solution to be able to register some players or even to avoid major consequences (such as fines). This accusation on the way of proceeding of LaLiga is poured into the point 4 of the Open Lettera:
“However, we also express our deepest concern at a general sentiment that we have seen these days: It is the La Liga’s economic control regulations that in August pushed the clubs to accept a project that we consider ruinous, simply because it had been structured by the La Liga managers as a valid solution to complete the registration of players or, even, avoid additional consequences. “
“La Liga’s economic control rules are at the service of the clubs. They are not rules at the service of La Liga managers, nor should they serve in any case as a lever, nor constitute a bargaining chip, for the promotion of operations such as the La Liga Impulso Project. This has to change immediately. “
“While neighboring countries relaxed their economic control rules due to the pandemic, in order to provide their clubs with the essential financial oxygen, here, on the contrary, faced with such an unfortunate situation, a financially ruinous project was linked (and, we remember again, chosen without a transparent and open selection process) to the relaxation of financial control rules (yes, only for those clubs that voted in favor of the proposal of the managers of La Liga). Intolerable”.
“The clubs are the sovereigns of La Liga, not prisoners of its managers. And, as sovereigns, we have the right and the obligation to endow ourselves with rules that make sense and are adjusted to the current economic reality. It cannot cost Spanish football 12,000 million euros to survive the consequences of the pandemic because its managers propose it to do so. “
Consult the full text of the open letter sent by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic
TEBAS RESPONDS AGAIN WITH ANOTHER LETTER
Faced with the latest letter from Athletic, Barcelona and Real Madrid, Tebas has once again sent another letter to professional clubs defending their plan, although it does not mention the accusations of using the rigor of financial control to carry out Impuslo Project: “The same arguments are repeated with lThe sole intention of generating the maximum uncertainty and confusion to ensure, in any way, that LaLiga Impulso does not go ahead “.
Criticism of Thebes to the Sustainable Project
Regarding the financial structure of the project, the president of LaLiga wanted to underline several concepts in this new letter: “It is not directly comparable because this is a debt operation (with respect to the Sustainable Project) and, therefore, requires guarantees (as indicated the presentation) and the Impulse Plan is an equity operation (capital) and, therefore, the investor runs the risk of the business, whether it goes well or badly, with no guarantees of repayment of the principal “.
“Actually, the structure proposed by Real Madrid revolves around super senior financing, which receives a preferential right over the clubs since access the first euros generated by the commercialization of audiovisual rights. It assumes neither business risk nor, in practical terms, financial risk. This collides head-on with the current funding structure of the clubs.
“This operation, therefore it is not possible for many of the clubs that could never use the funding to develop their project and even less to use these funds to grow as a club. The LaLiga Impulso operation is a strategic operation with a partner to grow in the future, not a mere financing as the alternative project presents “.
Defense of a common project
“This is not an exclusive LaLiga project. As is evident, This project will only be carried out if it is approved by the General Assembly by a large majority and will have the individual consent of each and every participating club.. It is a joint project of LaLiga and the clubs. “
In addition, Tebas highlights the management of the money invested by CVC: “The capital is sent to the clubs in the form of a participatory loan regulated by article 20 of RDL 7/1996. All clubs can take this participating loan without asking their common creditors for consent. “
“The clubs are not going to grant any type of pledge or lien on their rights, which also continue to be 100% of their exclusive ownership. Furthermore, there is no right of compensation that creates a legal preference over other creditors of the clubs, but a mere mechanism of payments for compensation without effect against third creditors “
Criticism of Real Madrid
“LaLiga cannot be subjected to a club that after more than three years clandestinely planning the operation of the Superliga, introduced the project just six months ago knowing that it was deadly to our league as numerous reports have shown. With deceptive arguments, disguising the salvation movement for all clubs and legally threatening LaLiga. Exactly the same as now. “
“We already announced a few weeks ago that We anticipated days of media conflict and noise aimed at making us lose focus of the common goal of working for a better and stronger League. AND we are seeing it: artificial diffusion on social networks, use of the usual media springs, generation of confusion, legal threats, pressure of all kinds … fortunately, it is already a modus operandi that we all know “.
“We still have complicated days ahead because they will not cease in their efforts, so we will have to continue working for the common goal of a strong, competitive League with a future “.
Check the response of Thebes to the letter from Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic