La Liga Rules Benefit Other Leagues More – Laporta

Barcelona president, Joan Laporta has come out to say that the club are in a constant tug-of-war with LaLiga over financial limits imposed upon them. He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, him doing his very best to stabilize Barcelona’s finances in recent months after seeing how wrecked it was has clearly provoked La Liga to apply even more restrictive rules on the club.

Laporta added that the rules are more benevolent to other leagues because Spanish clubs are not allowed to compete favorably with European rivals.

His words, “LaLiga sets limits based on your accounts,”

“We inherited a club in excess of its limit by €300-350 million. We have reduced [the wage bill] by around €100m but have maintained a competitive squad. By the summer, that will be €170m. We are still exceeding the limit but we saved Barca from financial ruin. What we inherited can’t be fixed overnight.”

“That provokes LaLiga to apply even more restrictive rules on us. We made a huge effort, through selling assets, to register players. Every time we overcome an obstacle, LaLiga change the rules so we don’t do it again.”

“It’s a constant tug-of-war. We will try to make their rules more flexible because they don’t allow us to compete in equal conditions with our European rivals. The rules are more benevolent in other leagues.”

“We could start with the issue of selling assets. LaLiga changed the rule on that, which they are free to do so … We sold assets to build a more competitive team; then they changed the rule and put a 5% limit [of a club’s revenue] on asset sales.”