The head of La Liga, Spain’s professional football leagues, has attacked a plan for new global tournaments as “totally irresponsible”, saying it would decimate the football industry in countries around the world.
Fifa, international football’s governing body, is in talks with a consortium of international investors, including Japan’s SoftBank, which has promised $25bn to expand the Club World Cup, an annual competition played by seven of the globe’s top teams, into a 24-strong tournament held every four years, as well as a new league contest for national teams.
Javier Tebas, president of Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, which runs Spain’s two top professional divisions, called on Fifa to scrap the proposals despite the two biggest clubs in the country, Real Madrid and Barcelona, publicly supporting the plan.
“My obligation is to protect the football industry in Spain and these tournaments [would] really damage the football league and the football industry here,” said Mr Tebas. “I’ve already said to Real Madrid and Barcelona in regard to this: there will be food now and hunger tomorrow.”
He said an enlarged Club World Cup would lead to the further concentration of wealth in Europe’s heavyweight teams. That would damage the competitiveness of national leagues, making them less appealing to broadcasters and sponsors over the long term.
According to a presentation for the expanded Club World Cup, Fifa plans to include at least 12 European sides. Four Spanish teams — Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla — would qualify for the event, where they would compete for almost $2bn in prize money.
“This will cause a deconstructing of the national league,” said Mr Tebas. “We already have this problem in Europe. We have to face it and find a solution because the Club World Cup will make it even worse.”
He said the new tournaments would mean more matches are played each season, which would force national leagues such as his own to trim the number of clubs in the top division from 20 to 18 to cope with the additional fixtures.
This would result in La Liga losing hundreds of millions of euros in broadcasting and sponsorship rights, he added. It would also prompt a “cascading effect” down the football pyramid in many countries, with pay cuts for players and job losses at clubs.
Fifa insists the proposed tournaments would reduce the number of matches each year. The Club World Cup would take place in June, when the quadrennial Confederations Cup, which would be abolished, is held. Nations League matches would take place on dates allocated for national “friendly” matches, which they would replace.
Gianni Infantino, Fifa president, plans to call a vote on the proposals in the coming weeks, according to people close to him. However, citing non-disclosure agreements, he has not revealed the identities of the investors, saying only that they represented “major interests and multinationals in Asia, Europe and North America”.
The lack of transparency around the plans has led to strong opposition from some groups, including Uefa, European football’s governing body.
“It seems we’re going back to the days of the old Fifa, where decisions were made in very small committees and no transparency and all the people affected were not involved,” said Mr Tebas.
