Barca Advocates Exile For Opponents

Posted on 11/7/2011

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Not only does Barcelona President Sandro Rosell refuse to share, he wants to exile clubs from La Liga altogether in an effort to deflect the negative spotlight placed on severe inequality in Spanish football.

On Monday, Rosell presented the idea for a smaller Spain at the International Football Arena conference, saying La Liga "has too many clubs."

"We have 20 and we should go down to 18, then to 16," Rosell told the audience as a solution to the financial problems faced by Spanish football teams.   He also went on to demonize foreign ownership, but conceded that the lopsided television revenues enjoyed by Barcelona and Real Madrid will likely come to an end in the next three to five years.

Rosell’s concession on revenue sharing is disingenuous and it is betrayed by his other two ideas.

First, should La Liga shrink to 16 teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid will have to share less of the television revenue with a fewer total clubs.  More importantly, it would also become easier to influence and manipulate teams with fewer members in opposition. 

In a 16-team league, Barcelona and Real Madrid would need to influence only seven votes to always get their way at negotiations. Rosell must believe this is manageable. His club may be deep in debt, but the president can perform basic arithmetic. Winning seven votes from the opposition is cheaper than nine.

Second, if foreign ownership is restricted as Rosell suggests, smaller clubs will never catch up to the cumulative wealth gathered at Camp Nou and Bernabeu in recent years.  

Up to this point, Rosell and his Real Madrid counterpart, Florentino Perez at the Bernabeu, have declined virtually all invitations to share television revenues.  The two giants negotiate their own contracts, and are able to use that money to win titles and reach the lucrative UEFA Champions League every season, creating an even bigger financial gulf between themselves and the rest of Spain. 

Without foreign ownership, the conditions will worsen for those already suffering under the current arrangement. Rosell and Perez are aware but unsympathetic and quite fearfully, don't wish to see a Manchester City type pop up in Spain to break its two-team supremacy.

The Barcelona president’s latest public sentiments are a part of continued efforts by his team and Real Madrid to keep La Liga a two-horse race with little resistance on or off the pitch. Shrinking La Liga by exiling teams will only strengthen Barcelona’s hand and Rosell knows it.