Statement from Barça against Tebas for his attacks on the 'Sustainable Project'

The FC Barcelona has surprised publishing this Tuesday a communiqué signed beside the Real Madrid and to the Athletic Club directing directly against Javier Thebes​, president of LaLiga. The culés have left clear his posture regarding the 'Sustainable Project', that is the alternative that the three clubs have 'mounted' to the 'Project Promote' of LaLiga, better known like the agreement with the investment fund 'CVC'.

"We regret that the Presidency of The League have derived in an incompatible personalism with the principles and values of the football and with the functions, responsibilities and obligations of said charge", affirmed of conclusive form in the writing, directing directly against Thebes by the letters that the mandator 'commanded' "the 3 and on 5 December 2021". Besides, the culés defended his project t attacked to the of the Spanish championship. "We observe that any of his communications values with the rigour that deserves neither the characteristics of Sustainable Project neither the grave irregularities of the alternative project that promotes", commented.

In relation to this, the Barça urged to Thebes to defend to all the teams of LaLiga above his personal profits. "We remember the ineludible have to of the President of The League to act like loyal administrator of said association. We require to the President of The League that act with the loyalty that is him exigible like administrator of said association, obviando any position or personal interest that could influence in his behaviour", declared.

"Said have to is incompatible with his performances including (i) the pretended execution of the Project The League Promote without a previous competitive process, opened and transparent, that maximice his conditions for all, (ii) the disparity in the deal and access to information on said project awarded to diverse members of The League and (iii) the attack to Sustainable Project from own and affine means, when it does not leave to be an alternative proposal that offers legal and reasonable solutions to the clubs and that it has to be valued", continued to defend the idea of Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic.

Comúnicado Of the whole Barcelona

To continuation, the Barça detailed in the extensive communiqué in what consists the called 'Sustainable Project' and what does that it was an idea improved regarding the one of LaLiga with the agreement with 'CVC'. The blaugrana, the same that the merengues and the bilbaínos, have wanted to insist in that the president of the patronal would have to be opened to study this proposal. This is the rest of the whole communiqué:

On Sustainable Project

To) Sustainable Project, contrary to what sustains the President of The League, is not a conceptual approach. It applies a common structure of finance, usually employed by sought-after Spanish, leagues and North American teams. It has prices indicativos of prestigious international banks (even in shape of Highly Confident Letter). Move that this proposal is not viable, without interesting at least by his details, is, simply, be missing to the truth.

 

b) Sustainable project has three essential advantages on the project promoted by the President of The League:

(i) In the economic plane would result extraordinarily more attractive for the clubs. According to the own basic case presented by The League, Sustainable Project would allow to save to the clubs more than 12.000 million euros, being a proposal 15 more economic times and that, besides, only includes commitments by 25 years, and no by 50;

(ii) In the juridical plane is a fully legal proposal, when structuring directly by the clubs without the direct participation of The League. In this way no vulnera the property of the clubs on the audiovisual rights, do not prejudice the rights of any third (including clubs of inferior categories and creditors) and do not employ mercantile structures and countable concepts with ends artificiosos; and

(iii) In the plane of corporate government does not confer to any extraneous entity to the world of the football participation any in the management and gobernanza of The League (question that, besides, also would be irregular in the juridical plane).

c) Neither sustain the arguments of the President of The League in relation with the need to endow to the association of an industrial partner that help him to grow. It would be inexplicable hire like industrial partner to a financial investor whose agents announced publicly his intention of desligarse of the Project The League Promote in a time limit of "8 to 10 years" and move his position to another investor. The League

It has to grow with his own means and make the contractings that result necessary to grow without losing his independence and full property. It is not necessary to waste 12.000 million euros to have capacity to grow.

d) Reiterate that we put to disposal of the ours Spanish football experience and resources for, working joined, carry to good port Project Sustainable or any another operation that have economic sense and respect the legality.

3. On the grave irregularities of the Project The League Promote

To) The structure of the operation conceived by the President of The League sustenta in a grave -and obvious- conceptual error, already evident from his announcement, and that never has been corrected because this does not result possible. It presents the operation on the base that the bottom values to The League in 24.250 million euros and is had to make his investment on a multiple of 15 times EBITDA. The question is evident:

How it is possible that The League, non-profit association, scope said assessment, if it is not proprietary of the audiovisual rights of the competition neither can have of them, because they are direct property and

Scoop of the clubs? It is more, said rights not even belong to the clubs to which now subjects to consideration this operation, because they are property of all the clubs that play the competition in the next 50 years.

b) From an error of concept of such calibrate, the structure of the Project Ties It Impulse consists in an escaped to forward that, among others, has like main objective articulate that it was The League, and no the clubs, the one who transmit at the end a percentage of the audiovisual rights (although they are not of his property) and assume obligations of payment in front of east. And for this does not doubt in structuring the

Operation around an original agreement of "accounts in participation" and a voluntarista concept of "cost of commercialisation", all this of way artificioso and constituting a clear fraud of law (see the annex to this letter).

c) From the perspective of the clubs the operation constitutes, besides, an act of appropriation (expropriation) by part of The League of his audiovisual rights by a term of 50 years. And this demonstration remains showed when it establishes now -no in the proposal of August- a supposed mechanism indemnizatorio of compensation in favour of the "clubs no participants" in shape of

"Cost of additional commercialisation", that is not another thing that a new subterfuge with which pretends evade the inability of The League to have of the audiovisual rights of the clubs. However:

(i) Said mechanism lacks juridical efficiency in the measure in that a "transactional agreement" to said precise effect of the indispensable consent express and individual of the "clubs no participants". The own terms of the agreement proposed, establishing the need to indemnify to those who do not want to receive to the same, show his illegality;

(ii) Is false that the clubs that decide not receiving the money of the bottom do not see affected by the Project Promote. Rigorously false. It deprives them of rights of which are owners in return of a "compensation". Like members of The League, forces them to be partícipes of illegal structures and artificiosas, built in fraud of law, in damage of third and creditors, in flagrant violation of the RD-Law 5/2015 (question on which will have to pronounce the Upper Council of Sports) and that, besides, put in danger the financial stability of all the clubs, participate or no. It forces them to share with the bottom property, gobernanza and management of activities of The League, in incumplimiento of the own juridical nature of this association; and

(iii) Besides, what would occur if the amount contributed by the bottom to The League in virtue of the agreement of accounts in participation transforms in ordinary debt of The League to types of immoderate interest, as it foresees on purpose in some suppositions? Said debt does not engage the financial feasibility of the association and the economic future of all his members, present and futures?

d) On the other hand, results inaudito, and very worrisome, that the President of The League induce in some cases to the clubs to act potentially of fraudulent way in front of his creditors with guarantees on his audiovisual rights. It has manifested, even by writing, that the Project The League Promote can carry out without said consent. It is not true. The structure of the operation proposed by The League includes an implicit cession, and indisputable, of audiovisual income of the clubs at the end (since the clubs agree to reduce during a lot of years said income and move them at the end in return to receive finance); thus, the execution of the operation without the consent of the corresponding creditors would be in such cases a fraudulent diagram.

And) Besides, with the agreement with the bottom, The League would situate out of the legal frame of his competitions, exceeding the faculties that attributes him the Law of the Sport. The membership of the clubs of football to The League results compulsory by legal mandate (Law of the Sport), on the base of the legal limitation of his competitions, as any another interpretation would be contrary at the beginning of need (article 9.2.b) Of the Law 17/2009) and to the freedom of association (article 22 of the Constitution). Any club is forced to affiliate to an entity for the exercise of other distinct functions of the planned legally. The clubs do not have the obligation to bear the consequences of the exercise by The League of activities for which was not foreseen the compulsory membership, and much less in diet of cogobernanza and cotitularidad with third extraneous to the ends and own memberships of The League. When planting out of his legal frame of competitions, The League loses his legitimación to demand the compulsory membership of the clubs of football. We trust that the Real Spanish Federation of Football also protect the interests of the clubs of football in relation with this question.

f) All these questions -to the margin of other considerations and additional irregularities in relation with the Project The League Promote such as, between others, the imposición of agreements of abusive form or the realisation of contrary operations to the interest of the association without maximizar the potential conditions of the transaction by means of competitive processes, opened and transparent- are of such gravity that will force to the clubs to adopt the legal measures, of the order that proceed, for the protection of his legitimate interests

4. On the norms of economic control of the clubs of The League

To) As we signalled in our letter of the past 2 December, are fully conscious of the financial situation that suffers the sector of the Spanish football, aggravated materialmente by the pandemia of the Covid. Sustainable project has like aim help to the clubs to recover the economic pulse, facilitating liquidity in terms of market on the base of rational structures. And we are had to work in this direction, already was with our proposal or with any another that, from the legality, launch similar profits.

b) However, are also ours deeper worry in front of a feeling generalised that have ascertained these days: they are the norms of economic control of The League those that pushed in August to the clubs to accept mostly a project that consider dilapidated, simply because it had been structured by the agents of The League like valid solution to complete the registration of players or, even, avoid additional consequences.

c) The norms of economic control of The League are to the service of the clubs. They are not norms to the service of the agents of The League, neither have to serve in no case of crowbar, neither constitute coin of change, for the promotion of operations like the Project The League Promote. This has to change of immediate form.

d) While neighbouring countries flexibilizaban his norms of economic control by reason of the pandemia, to end to facilitate to his clubs the indispensable financial oxygen, here, on the contrary, in front of so miserable coyuntura linked a financially dilapidated project (and, remember again, chosen without a process of transparent and open selection) to the flexibilización of the norms of financial control (this yes, only for those clubs that voted in favour of the proposal of the agents of The League). Intolerable.

And) The clubs are the sovereigns of The League, no prisoners of his agents. And, like sovereigns, have the right and the obligation to endow us of norms that have sense and adjust to the current economic reality. It can not cost him to the Spanish football 12.000 million euros survive to the consequences of the pandemia because like this they propose it his agents. In sight of the gravity of the facts understand necessary to tackle a structural reform of the Spanish football, splitting of an assessment in depth of the real situation of the needs of the professional football, his clubs and the necessary mechanisms of solidarity with the remaining categories of base. And, all this, delimiting and separating the necessary areas of strategic development of the necessary tools for paliar the consequences of the impact of the pandemia, raising record and delimiting the real needs of cost in professional structure and development for the activity that is entrusted to The League for the commercialisation of rights of television, and including those appearances of the rule of economic control that result timely.

Here we tend our hand to the rest of clubs of football and actors of the sport for this, being Sustainable Project an excellent opportunity to restart the consensus that so much needs the general interest of the football, from the legality, the good management and the common sense.

A strong embrace,

Aitor Elizegi (Athletic Club), Joan Laporta (Football Club Barcelona), Florentino Pérez (Real Madrid Club of Football) ​