Tebas: "The Spanish Government will receive a letter from the Assembly in order to push forward the issue of a centralised system for selling television rights"

The clubs and SAD that make up the Liga de Fútbol Profesional held an Extraordinary General Assembly today in which a centralised system of selling television rights was decided upon with 40 votes in favour of the proposal and just one against (Athletic Club).

After the Assembly, Javier Tebas, the LFP president, spoke about "the almost unanimous support of the need for the Spanish Government to regulate the centralised sale and distribution of rights" and reiterated "the wish of all those concerned for this to be done as soon as possible because if not Spanish football will have serious problems in terms of competitiveness and the value of our rights will decline". The president of the association called on the Government to "pass the Royal Decree as quickly as possible". 

Tebas explained, "the centralised sale of La Liga rights will follow the examples set by other European leagues". The president then outlined what the process would consist of: "The LFP will tender the sale and the rights will be distributed according to the criteria set out by the Royal Decree. We would like the Government to be responsible for establishing the distribution method through the Decree". On the topic of Athletic Club's opposition to the proposal, Javier Tebas added, "it is not for us to impose rules on them".

The president argued that, "the fundamental goal should not be creating a model to exploit the La Liga rights, but to establish a pay-tv system". Javier Tebas also explained that, "the Premier League has 11 million television subscribers, and that difference causes a lot of players to leave. Until we reach 8 million subscribers we will not be able to compete on the same level". Tebas added, "in the short-term, we hope that all the clubs continue to make the same amount but our long-term goal is for clubs to make even bigger profits".

With respect to the relationship between the Liga de Fútbol Profesional and the Real Federación Española de Fútbol, the president stated cuttingly: "I am not confronting Ángel María Villar. If anyone is confronting La Liga it is him. I don’t like to speculate but I don’t think the blame can be shared around evenly among everyone. La Liga's doors are open for the RFEF".

The president of the association explained that, "we at La Liga have to defend our competitions and our rights, and try to have a dialogue with all the institutions, including those that refuse to speak with us", and added "we will not be silenced just because some people do not like what we are doing".