Spanish league decries ‘doped’ market of high-spending EPL | Soccer
MADRID (AP) — Spanish league president Javier Tebas on Wednesday criticized high spending by Premier League clubs during the winter transfer window, saying “the UK market is boosted.”
Tebas pointed to Chelsea’s spending spree after the London club made nearly half of Premier League signings while spending an estimated $225m – more than any club in the top leagues of Spain, Italy, from Germany and France combined.
“The Premier League is a competition that has lost billions of pounds in recent years,” Tebas said. “And this is financed by the contributions of patrons, in this case large American investors who finance at a loss. It doesn’t happen in the Spanish League and it doesn’t happen in the German League either, especially those two.
Tebas noted Spain’s strict control of economic sustainability by not allowing “contributions to cover the losses of these barbaric amounts that occur, and that is what makes the difference in the market.”
Tebas acknowledged English clubs have higher turnover commercially “but not in the volume of that difference there is”.
“It is quite dangerous that the markets are boosted, inflated, as has happened in recent years in Europe, because it can jeopardize the sustainability of European football,” Tebas said.
The Spanish league president, whose aim was to reduce the Premier League’s global dominance, said that “buying players at the price the Premiership is buying them is an inflationary purchase”.
He said the Spanish league was still doing well and noted that it had recently had two Champions League semi-finalists, as well as Ballon d’Or winner in Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema and Golden winner Boy in Barcelona Gavi.
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