October 22 – LaLiga president Javier Tebas has added to his condemnation of Manchester City, saying “we need justice for the Premier League, for Europe and UEFA”.
City have been found guilty by the Premier League of breaching the league’s financial rules 114 times.
Speaking at the Sportel conference in Monaco, Tebas said this was not the first time he had called out City.
At Soccerex in Manchester in 2017, Tebas questioned the way Middle Eastern-backed big spenders Paris Saint-Germain and Man City do business, saying they had an unfair competitive advantage “because of money not created by the club itself”.
Essentially the ‘sham’, bloat, advertising and sponsorships that the Premier League tribunal found Man City guilty of creating to keep them within FFP rules.
In 2017, after comparing the different sources of income of Europe’s top clubs, Tebas asked: “PSG has much more sponsorship than Manchester United, but how can that be? This is financial doping. Why? Because there is value that comes from sponsorship outside the market.”
“We think the rules have been broken. It’s not that I don’t like PSG. But what happens when that money goes into European football? There’s an inflation of wages and transfer fees. It’s hurting football.”
“European football must know that there is an incredible risk when money comes from the states. PSG paid Barcelona 222 million euros for Neymar, but it never ends. All (PSG president) Nasser (Al-Khelaïfi) has to do is open the gas tap. That’s the problem. That’s not the market price of football. It’s the market price of gas.”
“It’s not just last summer. I’m talking about several seasons. If we don’t get it under control, the smaller leagues won’t grow and the whole industry will fall apart.”
Tebas said that Man City’s chief executive (Ferran Soriano), after his comments, “called me because he was angry with me because I was telling people everything … what they were doing.”
“I’m interested to understand how this story will end. It’s important both for the Premier League and for the European football ecosystem. There are people who have had to leave UEFA because of Manchester City, so I think we need justice for the Premier League, for Europe and for UEFA…” he continued.
“Of course, we hope the Premier League will understand that it is more sensible … they have quite a complicated financial situation.”
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