Tebas: “We must defend Real Madrid and Barça or they will be condemned to suffer in Europe”

Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, put the finishing touch to the World Football Summit 2021 at the Wanda Metropolitano. The president closed the congress in a talk with Marc Merchén, in which he reviewed several of the challenges and fronts that Spanish football has in the coming months and years.

CVC Agreement: “It is one of the four most important milestones. CVC had already made investments in other competitions. This plan is going to boost many Spanish football clubs that organically with their resources they were not going to be able to do so. The vast majority of the clubs are very happy “Our competitors are decreasing and we continue to grow. Now we have the national trend. This plan will be to continue growing for the next ten years.”

CVC contribution: “I had to do a meeting with a fund to explain it to them. In the financing of Barcelona, ​​rights are mortgaged for ten years. In this one there is no mortgage, CVC assumes the risk of if we decrease in income, charge less. It has no minimum, it is a partner. It has nothing to do with a financial investment, because in those they do not assume risk and here CVC does assume it “.

Club plans: “It is only 15% for players. The remaining 85% has to see the needs of each club. We have to improve the stadiums, digitize them. Some are weak. There are many clubs lacking in digitization. The top ten Premier League clubs They surpass us. For that we need a structure in the clubs that there is not. We must internationalize and travel. CVC does not put money to lose, but to win. The better CVC does, the better it will be for us. In the next 10- 15 years we are going to grow 30% more than we are now. Organic growth is not possible now, we have to look for partners. The vice president of Barcelona, ​​who is doing a Super League, defends that now it will always grow at 3% Note that if CVC creates in LaLiga, if with the Super League and a World Cup every two years, a fund bets on us. Not accessing a fund is lagging behind the industry. If it helps you grow, why not it is going to be”.

Other leagues: “The night before the vote in Serie A, Juventus jumped out of the car because they had to sign a clause that did not allow them to be in the Super League. That is why they did not want to. That reading must be done in Spain. In Germany only they raised an issue of funds in international audiovisual rights. It is not comparable. “

Blockade Real Madrid and Barcelona: “They have not blocked anything. Real Madrid for seven years has been opposing LaLiga issues that we widely approve. It is a vote. We have not agreed for four or five years. We work for the majority. They work for a Super League model. , which hurts the national leagues. How are you going to support the growth of LaLiga? What Florentino Pérez said is not true, he said that it would not affect the national leagues. There is a report from KPMG. How are you going to support the growth of LaLiga when they are doing a project that affects 20,000 million euros to that League. If he guarantees me that we are not going to lose that money, we will talk. They will not do it. “

Economic situation: “The clubs take important risks. The important thing is that we know what affects the industry. Every morning the Spanish league gives me vertigo. What we decide affects the Spanish GDP. What they say about changing the format of the League, they say about sending take thousands of families by hand. That makes me dizzy. These clubs must be demanding in terms of decisions. Some only think about issues that benefit them and not the whole. There are institutions with a lot of frivolity. They made a mess with Monday and Friday games. The president of the RFEF came out with the Spanish flag that looked like Pedro Sánchez. There are things that are non-negotiable. He asked me so many things, almost going to bed with my wife (he jokes). There is a lot of frivolity that It affects the industry. If football hurts your head, now they say that you have to change the format. They only solve it with that. They are not creative. You have to demand FIFA or UEFA to see if the audiovisual rights are well exploited, if there are rules of transparency encia, labor laws … There is much to fix in the world, rather than holding a World Cup every two years. “

2024: “There are non-negotiable things. Like a World Cup every two years, like the Champions League format. The one that is now is not bad, but it can be improved. With the Club World Cup, UEFA and Leagues have a very clear position. We must dedicate ourselves Starting in 2024 to improve governance standards and help leagues to better exploit their resources. In the Ecuador League we have helped to improve many things, but not by changing the formats. The Super League was Robin Hood but in reverse. The World Cup they want is the same “.

Club balance: “In Spain there is a balance between large, medium and small. If only the big ones were valid, football would be ruined. There has to be a balance, which is what the Super League and the president of its chiringuito do not want. They want to control it and They say they will sell everything and will be very supportive. “

Audiovisual rights: “I don't want to wear a medal. I already said three years ago that the arrival of the OTT was going to cause a disruption in the fall of rights. And it is not because of the COVID issue. They are not going to increase the price. we will settle for a more or less 2%. The Royal Decree said that the limitation was three years and in the Viana Pacts we managed to get it out. Others managed to get money from us … Now we have to look at the rules of Europe. The key is If the tender is going to violate the Competition rules. Three years later there was only one competitor, if it is four or five years there will be more. The facts will show that we are going to have more competitors and that they are going to offer more distribution of the product to all of Spain. It is our concern, we have gone from three and a half million to two and a half. It is not because they do not want to see us, but because access has been reduced only to Telefónica and Orange. In Spain there are four million homes They can't see it even when they pay. And the same thing happens with OTTs. or it can be and LaLiga cannot be passive before a distribution that is not correct. And we had to be disruptive with the tender. We could not go to Almudena to pray, but we have to work to satisfy the maximum “.

New sale: “There will be seven options. One will be five First Games and another five for another. Another would be 7 and 3 days. Everyone will be able to offer all the options and the one that wins will be awarded. Nobody misses what has happened in Italy, DAZN has remained seven and Sky three. By dividing packages we give options that different telecos can access. We also give the option to follow some days, such as Amazon with England. All this produces conversations between them. There are two left months, yesterday we presented it. “

Multiple subscriptions: “I do not know what will happen. The fact that there are two subscriptions to watch football is nothing new. It happens in Italy, Germany … Channels are exchanged. It is not a novelty.”

Open match: “It will not be exclusive. It will be on payment platforms that will have to share it. It may not be on DTT platforms. Now only the residential tender is going to come out. We want operators to focus on the one that has the most value. If then you leave a margin of reflection and they see that they lack things, then they buy LaLiga SmartBank. Maybe five games will be awarded and another five will have to be a second round. There is a lot of strategy. “

LaLiga OTT: “Everything has a period of duration and it is left for us to distribute directly. Disney had its channels. Where is it going? Before it was a relationship with the operators and now they have left that. Now they are selling it directly to the customer. That It is a path that must be followed. We are prepared with this OTT for when this circumstance occurs and we must distribute directly. Now we are working with LaLiga Pass. The objective is not distribution, but to accompany the operator of the country. In India we go to get LaLiga Pass. For those users who want to know more about LaLiga can access. And they will leave us their data to learn more. We have to give more satisfaction to those users and they want to see more things in those countries that are not satisfied with just seeing the game. There will be summaries of several minutes (3, 5, 12 minutes). You don't have those possibilities now. “

Expansion: “It is still important. The pace of international rights is different depending on the country. You have to make different strategies. You don't have to sell all of them at the same time. We have 75 different contracts around the world. In the next four years we are guaranteed the international rights to a 13% growth. No matter Messi has left, we have Vinicius and others will come. The success of LaLiga is not by luck, it is due to the work of a team of more than 600 people. “

LaLiga Tech: “It is one of the greatest values ​​we have. We have all the data in the world and organized. We can do a lot of digital marketing strategy. Last year we became the largest pizza franchise thanks to our digital strategy. LaLiga Tech is key to the growth of other leagues, we will save them six years of work. We are in contact with several leagues. “

Economic control: “I have already spoken about the financial control of UEFA. We do not believe that unlimited contributions are beneficial. We do not agree with the model that UEFA is going towards. It has huge risks. There must be contributions, but limited, with a control. A Superliga project would be generated if a lot of money is freely put in. Football is not sustainable with such unlimited funding. Many ECA clubs are against it. I hope that the conversations we are having with UEFA are successful. We are not going to change our model. They will be less competitive in Europe, but they will be sustainable. We must defend our big clubs like Madrid and Barcelona, ​​which will be condemned to suffer in European competitions. “

Barcelona: “I don't like that any team has institutional problems. Hopefully it will be fixed. I don't want to go in to assess any sporting aspect.”