Javier Tebas, president of the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, the Spanish football league, has said that the country’s two biggest clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid, are only willing to switch to a collective rights model for the top-tier Liga if their rights income does not decrease, according to the AS newspaper.
“The television rights will be sold together in the 2015-16 season or the following one,” said Tebas, who added that the Liga’s annual rights revenues could increase from a total of €800m ($1.05bn) to beyond €1bn under a collective model. “We know what is needed and how they will be sold… but the clubs will have to talk. Barcelona and Madrid have collaborated in shortening the income gap between themselves and the others – more so Barcelona. But, any kind of collective agreement is implicit that Madrid and Barcelona charge €136m per year for the rights for league and cup matches, hence they will not see a decrease.”
Tebas added: “The international market may be important, but not greatly so as there are only three that have the ability – (Rupert) Murdoch, Carlos Slim and Al Jazeera.”
In April, Spain’s Secretary of State for Sport, Miguel Cardenal, said that a new law would be introduced to force clubs to switch to a collective rights model, bringing to an end the club-by-club sales approach.