The 2012-13 Spanish Liga season will start as scheduled this weekend after clubs were assured at a meeting on Tuesday that progress had been made in talks to bring an end to a broadcast rights dispute between pay-television operator Prisa and the Mediapro agency.
Liga de Fútbol Profesional, the Spanish football league, called the meeting after Athletic Bilbao, Atlético Madrid, Real Betis, Celta Vigo, Espanyol, Getafe, Granada, Real Mallorca, Osasuna, Rayo Vallecano, Real Sociedad, Sevilla and Real Zaragoza said last week that the two parties in the broadcast dispute must settle any outstanding debts with clubs and drop any legal demands.
The issue has not yet been resolved, but according to the Reuters news agency officials from the 13 clubs were satisfied that progress towards a resolution had been made. Spain’s Secretary of State for Sport, Miguel Cardenal, was present at the meeting.
“We discussed issues to do with the league, with governance and with television broadcasts,” Liga president Jose Luis Astiazaran said. “There will be games this weekend that will start at the scheduled time.”
Real Betis president Miguel Guillen said: “There will have to be a solution but it won’t be ready on Wednesday [today]. It was an extremely important step forward that the Secretary of State is perfectly aware of the issues to be addressed.”
The dispute arose when Prisa accused Mediapro of launching an “illegal” sales process for rights covering the country’s top two football divisions for the next two seasons, 2012-13 and 2013-14.
The clubs had also called for the Liga to form a “transparent and regulated” system for drawing up kick-off times after some games this month were scheduled to start as late as 11.00pm.