Florentino Perez Is Fighting The La Liga-CVC Deal For The Wrong Reasons Even If His Concerns Are Valid

Written By Onyeka Daniel

The deal will reportedly see Real Madrid and Barcelona earn about €260 million each while Sevilla would earn about €135 million and €95 million for Real Betis which represents 15% of the total money (the 15% is used to reinforce squads and sign players while the rest is used for structural improvements at the stadium and facilities).

It seems like a good deal indeed at first glance but when what the CVC capital partners would be getting in return is put into consideration, it seems like carrot and stick exchange. CVC will be awarded a 10% ownership of the audiovisuals of La Liga for a period of 50 years, meaning, they (CVC) get 10.95% of the total media income of La Liga for a period of 50 years and similar percentage of La Liga’s sponsorship deal across the same time frame.

After much consideration, opposition from clubs in the Spanish League sprang up. Four teams were in the opposition initially, namely Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Real Oviedo, while the latter have switched their stance and decided to support the the deal.

The remaining clubs have their own different motives for opposing the deal. Athletic Bilbao on their part have an unwritten rule that the club will only sign players who were born in the Basque country or who learned their football skills at the Basque club, this policy has helped the club stay healthy financially even if it meant lack of trophies at the club, but they’re financially stable enough to want to reject the deal.

Real Madrid and Barcelona on their part see the deal as the final nail in the coffin to their Super League dreams. A dream that was born and buried within the space of two days following outrage from fans and the subsequent withdrawal of the other teams involved, but they still they have hopes of resurrecting the competition alongside Italian side, Juventus.

Florentino Perez has been very vocal in his views against the deal, even going as far as instituting a legal action against La Liga and CVC capital partners. While Barcelona president described the deal as “mortgaging the club’s right over the next half-century” and said he would reject it, even if the deal might have helped him keep Lionel Messi at the club before he left for Paris Saint-Germain but he decided to prioritize the future of the club in hindsight over Messi, even if he was actually protecting the interest of the Super League.

It could be argued that since the Super League debacle, Florentino Perez and Joan Laporta on one hand have been at loggerheads with La Liga president, Javier Tebaz, who supported UEFA president, Andrei Ceferin to oppose the creation of the Super League and is making it near impossible for the league to have any dream of restarting, hence his support for the CVC deal as it would mean that the Blaugrana and the Los Blancos would be under contract and can’t try to negotiate with another party for their rights which would be their best selling point to woo any potential sponsor for the new Super League they hope would be born from the old one.

In the end, they were able to reach a compromise as the deal still went ahead, but instead the clubs that opposed it were not included, this means that neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona will be collecting any of the €2.7 billion offered by the agreement and they would have control over their rights and income as against those that accepted the deal to forfeit a portion of their audiovisual rights for the next 50 years.

With the two giants out of the picture, it remains to be seen how the investment company intends to recoup their money as Real Madrid and Barcelona are the biggest brands in Spanish football.

It should be noted that CVC did offer a similar deal to the Italian League, which was voted against by majority who also had the same concerns but it has now become clearer that the big teams rejected it because at that time, they were nursing the hope of starting the Super League which was announced few weeks later after, before fans outrage made them (Inter Milan and AC Milan) pull out of the proposed tournament.

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