Espanyol President Threatens La Liga Strike Over TV Deal
October 9, 2013
The president of Espanyol, Joan Collet has said that Spanish Primera Division clubs could go on strike in a bid to force through a new distribution model for broadcast revenue.
Real Madrid and Barcelona currently earn 56% of the league’s broadcast revenue between them, a situation which Collet has described as a “crisis”.
He told Spanish newspaper Marca: “This competition is not fair and it verges on fraud. We’ve entered a dark alley and we must copy the model for the distribution of television rights from other leagues, like the Premier League. Not very long ago, all the clubs spent what they did not have. Football was a bubble.”
“Now the game is in complete crisis and the model has broken down. We have failed to establish a balance in La Liga in terms of finance and football. For many years, clubs have used the treasury department as a bank. Perhaps the only solution is to call a strike. They had one in Italy and the league stopped for two or three weeks because the politicians found a quick solution.”