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- Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao to take legal action against LaLiga
- €2bn deal gives CVC an 8.25% stake in league’s media rights for next 50 years
LaLiga’s ‘Impulso’ investment deal with private equity firm CVC has been confirmed after 37 of the 42 clubs in Spanish soccer’s top two divisions gave their approval.
The €2 billion (US$2.25 billion) deal will see the capital firm secure a 8.25 per cent share in a company comprising of LaLiga’s media rights assets for the next 50 years.
Spanish clubs are allowed to spend up to 70 per cent of funding from the investment on infrastructure, 15 per cent on servicing debt, and 15 per cent on signing players.
The original agreement first announced in August was worth €2.7 billion (US$3.04 billion), before Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Athletic Bilbao opted out of the deal. Those clubs will not receive any cash from CVC, but retain their full allocation of central media rights income.
Of the 42 teams voting on 10th December, those three teams voted against the deal, as did second division side Ibiza, with another unnamed club electing to abstain.
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao have pledged to take legal action against LaLiga over the CVC deal.
The three main opponents of the CVC deal presented an alternative financing deal that LaLiga president Javier Tebas dismissed as “an attempt to break the consensus and generate uncertainty”. According to Bloomberg, the proposal was for JP Morgan, Bank of America and HSBC to provide a €2 billion (US$2.3 billion), 25-year loan to be shared between clubs and paid back at an interest rate of between 2.5 per cent and three per cent.
On 7th December, the three clubs published another open letter asking for an intervention from the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and Spain’s National Sports Council (CSD), describing the Impulso initiative as ‘illegal’ and ‘fraudulent’.
The CSD called a meeting between the parties on 9th December but the opposition clubs refused to attend when it became clear that the state body had no power to block the deal.
