Madrid, March 8 (IANS) Javier Tebas, the president of the Spanish football league La Liga has denied that the competition is in a financial crisis.
Tebas was responding to a story published in the El Espanol newspaper, which reports that La Liga’s TV deal with the ‘DAZN’ platform and a contract with the CVC investment fund, which has given money to most of the clubs in the tournament for a share of their money from the sale of audiovisual rights, were on the verge of falling apart.
The article reports that DAZN is not getting the return it had hoped for from its investment in TV rights, while CVC was having doubts over the viability of its agreement (part of which includes money from the sale of rights) and that the agreements were subsequently in “serious danger of not being maintained.”
Tebas responded to the story with a tweet describing it as “fake news”, adding that “DAZN is fulfilling its payments in agreement and everything is calm and as expected with CVC”, a Xinhua report said.
Tebas’ post on social media was followed by a communique from La Liga which insisted “it is absolutely false that DAZN and CVC are studying breaking their contracts with La Liga for economic and legal problems.”
“DAZN is up to date with payments and is fulfilling the signed contract,” says the statement, adding “La Liga and DAZN are and have worked together from the first moment in harmony and with common objectives.”
La Liga has tried to control the spending of clubs in La Liga, introducing wage ceilings in an attempt to prevent clubs getting into financial difficulty. However, this has made it difficult for many Spanish clubs to compete with the wages offered in other competitions, such as the Premier League.
–IANS
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