LaLiga meets with parliamentary groups from the Congress and Senate

LaLiga president Javier Tebas renewed the organisation's dialogue with representatives from the Commissions for Education and Sport of the Congress of Deputies and of the Senate during a breakfast meeting held at LaLiga's head office. The attendees included Angel Luis Gonzalez, of the Popular Group, Javier Anton Cacho, of the Socialist Group, Rodrigo Gomez, of the Citizens Group, and Carlos Salvador, of the Mixed Group. Maria Mercedes Mallol, of the Popular Group, and Juan Luis Soto, of the Socialist Group, attended on behalf of the Senate Commission. Also present at the meeting were Victor Martin, LaLiga's second vice-president, and Javier Gomez, LaLiga's corporate managing director.

During the meeting, reference was made to the notable reduction in the financial debt of the 42 LaLiga clubs since January 2013, when overall club debt was €650 million. This was reduced to €230 million as of September 2016. Javier Gomez explained that LaLiga's goal is to further reduce total debt to €50 million by September 2020.

LaLiga also explained the financial control mechanism which it uses to control club debt reduction to the political representatives, which consists of producing budgets for each club for the following season. Javier Tebas underscored the participation of the clubs in the financial controls established by LaLiga.

Tebas also stressed the willingness of LaLiga as a private institution to subject itself to the Transparency International index, given that it is the only private organisation all of whose affiliates, clubs and public limited sports companies achieve the transparency benchmarks recommended by this index.

The representatives of the Commissions of the Congress of Deputies and of the Senate made the most of the occasion to elicit LaLiga's opinion regarding the possibility of reforming the Law on Sport, which could grant the institution greater powers in terms of anti-doping measures, women's football, and sports federations, among other areas. Javier Tebas assured that "the important thing is not to amend the law, but to change the leadership and for there to be greater transparency and good governance, because it is not a problem of powers, but of good management."

During the meeting, the president pointed to LaLiga's involvement in projects such as the growth and professionalization of women's football, its support for other federations via LaLiga4Sports, the fight against match-fixing waged by LaLiga, actions carried out every matchday to reduce violence at stadiums, and the LaLiga Global Network – the internationalisation project being developed by LaLiga in 34 strategic countries.