New assembly organized by LaLiga and new fight between the president of the institution Javier Tebas and Real Madrid. The Spanish clubs met this Monday for more than five hours to approve the accounts for the previous year and they received almost unanimous support from the championship teams, with the exception of Casa Blanca, the only Spanish team to have voted against. It was a summit in which the presence of Pedro Rocha, interim president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), marked the end of the war between the federation and the league. Nevertheless, the confrontation between institutional employers and Real Madrid continues unabated.
The start of the Assembly was marked by the presence of Pedro Rocha, interim president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). He only spent ten to fifteen minutes at the summit, although he had more time to chat with the rest of the managers before the meeting started, since he spent an hour inside the headquarters. La Liga. No substantive issues were discussed, but the official photo of Javier Tebas sitting alongside Pedro Rocha during the meeting manages to stage the start of a period of peace between La Liga and the RFEF after five years of continuing conflicts between the two institutions. His speech was conciliatory, with an eye towards the 2030 World Cup.
Heated discussions!
This Monday’s meeting was that of the first blows of the sword. Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, attended the meeting again, where he was seen hugging José Ángel Sánchez, general manager of Real Madrid. Both have been partners in recent years, notably because of the Super League project and their rejection of the La Liga plan, but the Negreira Affair and the refereeing controversies have cooled the relationship a little. According to Spanish media, there was also a lot of tension between Javier Tebas and José Ángel Sánchez, as shown by the fact that they once again engaged in a lengthy standoff during the meeting. All this led LaLiga president Javier Tebas to defend his leaders against what he saw as an open attack by the Merengues against Spanish football. Real Madrid, for its part, doubts that LaLiga has the power to market the Madrid club’s audiovisual rights before and after matches, and affirms that changing the criteria for distributing money for these rights is not legal.
But the rest of the Spanish league clubs struggled to hide their anger at Madrid general manager José Ángel Sánchez when he declared that “La Liga is against Real Madrid”. Several club presidents and general managers demanded to speak at this meeting, including Sevilla FC, Eibar and Osasuna. They all openly criticized the behavior of the Madrid club, also questioning all La Liga initiatives and continually pursuing the projects of the management of Casa Blanca. They believe that this position of Madrid goes against the general interest of all teams and their growth: “We cannot be constantly at war, this must stop”, said a Spanish club boss. While Pedro Rocha declared at the end of the meeting that the Spanish referees were the best in Europe, Javier Tebas declared in the middle of the summit that the problem of refereeing was on the table and that a solution had to be found . Despite a stormy Assembly, several issues were not put on the table: the Negreira Affair involving the Blaugrana but also the anger of several clubs at the use of Real Madrid TV to talk about referees.
