Why are La Liga trying to block Neymar’s move to PSG?
La Liga officials have been actively trying to slow down Neymar’s move to PSG, but for what reason?
News finally broke that Neymar was poised to move to the French giants after they met Neymar’s release clause in his contract. This release clause is thought to be a massive £198 million. Since then rumours emerged that La Liga would block the move. But why would they?
To uphold Financial Fair Play regulations
Liga de Futbol Professional President Javier Tebas has gone on to accuse PSG of “financial doping” (AS). He believes that PSG has breached UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rulings by receiving the funds directly to meet Neymar’s £198 million buyout clause from the clubs, Qatari owners. Tebas even went onto say that the league would “not accept” PSG’s money.
FFP for those who are unaware, was brought in by UEFA and was implemented to fulfil the following aims (UEFA) :
- “Improve the economic and financial capability of the clubs, increasing their transparency and credibility”
- “Introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances”
- “Encourage clubs to operate on the basis of their own revenues”
- “Protect the long-term viability and sustainability of European club football”
To sum the FFP ruling up, it is essentially a regulation to prevent clubs from spending more than what they earn.
This ruling, however, does have some exceptions with clubs being allowed to make a small loss of €5 million over three years, assuming that these costs are covered by the club’s owners. However, this has not fully prevented clubs from breaching FFP, with one example being Manchester City who were found to be in breach in 2014 and were fined €60 million as well as sanctioned to naming a 21 man squad for European competitions instead of the normal 25 man squad.
La Liga are clearly challenging PSG to prove that they have gained their funds through lawful means and seem confident that the French club have not achieved these funds through commercial activities. Without knowing the full detail it’s hard to tell, but La Liga certainly do have a case.
A graphic by AS (on BitterAndBlue) showed a full breakdown of the 2013/14 domestic league’s television money distribution across Spain, Italy, England, Germany and France. Barcelona and Real Madrid who at the time were the big TV revenue earners in La Liga until 2016/17 which saw the introduction of a shared distribution of TV revenue, received €140 million.
This staggering figure was more than three times the amount that PSG, who were top of Ligue 1’s television money list, received (€44.6 million). Even Cardiff City who recorded the least amount of Premier League TV money after finishing bottom of the Premier League earned €30 million more than PSG’s total.
Although these figures have no doubt changed since 2013/14, it is understandable after seeing these figures why La Liga’s officials felt it was time to challenge them about the authenticity of these funds.
To protect the La Liga brand
Another possible reason for La Liga’s intervention in this deal could be seen as an attempt to protect the La Liga brand. Especially as they would be losing one of the league’s biggest players with a combined social media following of over 168 million (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). Tebas’s actions could be seen as a move to protect the league’s brand from one of its rivals. That being said Spain are top of UEFA’s coefficient rankings and are way ahead of France who are in fifth place according to UEFA’s ranking.
UEFA’s coefficient ranking combines the performances of clubs from each nation within European competitions and ranks them based on that scoring. The idea being that the better the performance by a nation in a European competition, the higher their coefficient score will be and vice-versa if nations don’t perform so well in European competitions their score will be lower. The nations with the highest coefficients are offered more European spaces for their teams.
You may be wondering what UEFA’s coefficient rankings have to do with it. Well, Europe’s premier domestic football competition pays well for clubs. Evidence of this can be found from the four Spanish clubs (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao) who participated during the 2014/15 Champions League, earning a combined total of €179 million as prize and participation money. (TotalSportek).
This revenue, in theory, is then reinvested back into the clubs both and off the pitch. From La Liga’s point of view, the hope is that with the money being reinvested the quality of the league can grow and as a result so can global interest unlocking further broadcasting deals for the Spanish football leagues. In turn, this would generate more money and so the cycle would go on and on.
That being said the I feel that the likelihood of La Liga trying to step in to prevent under these circumstances is very low as Spain are far superior in UEFA’s coefficient ranking. Also, I just can’t envisage them doing this with Neymar. If it was for Messi or Ronaldo I feel it could be a slightly different story.
What next for Neymar?
Whilst we await to hear UEFA’s official ruling on this potential transfer, Neymar is stuck in limbo. He has already said his farewells to his Barcelona teammates and equally, they’ve posted their appreciation of him too. It is being widely reported that Neymar tried contributing to PSG to pay out his release clause but reports suggest that this potential loophole has been denied by La Liga officials.
Information Sources:
The Independent – http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/neymar-transfer-latest-psg-barcelona-la-liga-financial-fair-play-paris-saint-germain-world-record-a7872426.html
AS – https://futbol.as.com/futbol/2017/08/02/primera/1501630232_086564.html
Neymar Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/neymarjr/?hl=en
Neymar Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/neymarjr/
Neymar Twitter – https://twitter.com/neymarjr?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
UEFA Coefficient Rankings – http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/
UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations – http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Tech/uefaorg/General/02/26/77/91/2267791_DOWNLOAD.pdf
TotalSportek – http://www.totalsportek.com/money/uefa-champions-league-prize-money/
BitterAndBlue – https://bitterandblue.sbnation.com/2015/2/20/8063543/television-revenue-and-distribution-in-the-top-european-leagues
The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/02/psg-200m-neymar-barcelona-financial-fair-play
Featured Image Source: Jan SOLO
Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jansolo09/3494640201/
Attribution: By Jan S0L0 (La afición) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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Very informative.