Barcelona and Real Madrid’s top players could move to England in the wake of the Premier League’s new television rights deal, La Liga president Javier Tebas has warned Spain’s leading clubs.
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Sky and BT Sport have paid a record £5.136bn for live Premier League TV rights for three seasons from 2016-17.
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Tebas said Real Madrid and Barcelona’s superstars could now leave Spain.
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“Well yes I think so. We have a serious problem, and we won’t be the best league in a year,” Tebas said.
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“We’re going to lose a lot of value in the market because the Premier league is going to snap up all of the global TV competition and contracts.”
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The Premier League’s new deal represents a 70% increase on Sky and BT’s current £3bn contract.
Spanish TV monopoly
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Tebas claims Spanish football must seek to redress the balance with a switch to collective bargaining for television deals.
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La Liga, where the broadcast rights are held by Barcelona-based Mediapro, is the only top European league in which clubs negotiate their own TV contracts.
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“Unless we urgently move towards centralised TV rights sales, Spanish football is going to have a very serious problem,” Tebas added.
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“Economically we’ll end up with a fifth-level competition.”
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Espanyol president Joan Collet claimed this week that some top-flight clubs are ready to strike (external) if the government does not pass a law mandating collective bargaining in La Liga.
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