CHENNAI: A few days after Lionel Messi departed from Barcelona, La Liga president Javier Tebas termed the Argentine legend’s exit as ‘traumatic’.
Tebas said that Barcelona could have managed to retain Messi had they been party to a deal between La Liga and private equity firm CVC. The deal, which was agreed by 38 of 42 La Liga clubs, including those playing in the second division, will bring in up to €2.7 billion ($3.2 billion) to the league.
The clubs would receive 90% of the money paid by CVC, with 70% aimed at long-term investments. A part of the money would also go toward paying off debts and increasing their spending limits on players and coaches.
However, top-flight clubs Barcelona, Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao voted against the deal on Thursday. Tebas slammed Barcelona officials for refusing the deal.
“Barcelona were due to receive €275 million as part of this deal, but there are very intelligent people running the club, making the decisions, and this intelligence is evident from the latest decisions that they have made,” Tebas said in a press conference in which TOI was the only Indian publication present.
The Liga chief said Barcelona could have paid off some of their debts from last season and that would have resulted in the Catalan club retaining Messi. “Of course we want to have the best players playing in LaLiga. Neymar has left, Cristiano has left and now Messi has left. His departure has been slightly traumatic, because everything was seemingly on track for a month but then it all fell through in a single afternoon. It hurts that Messi has left, but we’ve worked hard to maintain the value of our rights,” he said. “Barcelona haven’t lost Messi due to this. I put it down to other reasons. The club has a lot of debt and made huge losses last season,” he added.
Tebas also criticised Real Madrid for ‘always disrupting the functioning of the league’. “The position of Barca and Real is obviously related with the Super League… especially Real because Barcelona haven’t been a leader in Super League. This is a cultural problem for Real because they think big clubs need to organise everything so that the returns and surpluses can be divided amongst themselves.
“Real have always been getting in the way. For three years now, they have always voted against the agreements which we proposed. But we have managed to grow. They are not essential for the growth because the management of the broadcasting rights rests with La Liga. I would have liked them to be part of this agreement, but they are not. We are not going to cry about it. That is not going to prevent the growth of La Liga,” Tebas concluded.
