La Liga is back. Strong financially, but is it strong enough to stop the Premier League?

Money, as we all know, does not always get you what you want, but in the words of that larger than life American entertainer, Sophie Tucker, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor - rich is better.”

Finally, and not before time, Spain’s highest level of professional football - for the time being because of commercial reasons to be referred to as La Liga Santander - has gone some way to redressing the insiduous obscenity that for years kept Real Madrid and Barcelona dining on acorn fed ham while most of the rest had to make do with pigs’ ears.

Of course not all the of the clubs were prepared to cut their coat according to the cloth, and in an attempt to compete, took on board the philosophy of the 19th centruy humourist, Josh Billings who advised that you should “Always live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so.”

Unfortunately, more often than not, that money was ‘borrowed’ from Spain’s equivalent of HMRC, an organisation - whatever country it may be in - with a very long memory and the rather irritating habit of asking for its money back (I am joking of course). For some clubs this wasn’t an insurmountable problem. First of all, ignore all brown envelopes, secondly, stop paying your suppliers, your banks, your players, in fact just about everyone, and then pray; something will turn up; God will provide.

And sure enough something, or rather someone, did turn up; the taxman.

Latterly in La Liga, hope would comes breezing in through the boardroom door while simultaneously, common sense would go flying out of the window. Rough, tough, astute businessman would, with tears in their eyes, take over the club of their dreams and set about proving that while they were capable of running a business empire, in football terms they couldn’t run a bath.

There were of course exceptions, most notably Villarreal where the strong stewardship of Fernado Roig helped maintain an even keel even after they were relegated, and Sevilla, where the genius that is Monchi showed everyone how to do it by employing the old and trusted system of 'buy cheap-sell dear’ to maximum effect.

But by and large, appalling mismanagement and a head in the sand approach swiftly brought the vast majority of clubs to their knees.

Now finally La Liga has been dragged kicking and screaming into something resembling the real world. You would have liked to think it happened because of a new enlightened, philantropic set of ideals permeating the organisation; the triumph of a battle for fair play and common justice.

You would have hoped that it came about because the consciences of those at the top had been pricked; that the people in the know said this is wrong, things must change, enough is enough.

But of course you’d be wrong.

It was left to government to legislate on an iniquity that the league itself was unable - no, unwilling - to confront. It was left to the legislators to drag the league by its ear through the legislative process saying, “If you can’t sort this out, then we will.”

So that’s it, is it? Sorted? Done and dusted?

I’m afraid not, because while the disparity between top and bottom in La Liga has been reduced, it is still huge. Top clubs also, not unnaturally, are able to negotiate for themselves the best shirt and sponsorship deals and so the gap grows ever wider.

More importantly the financial gulf between La Liga Santander and the new Premier League is vast and growing.

The increase in funding for Spanish clubs coincides with the new massive deal organised by the Premier League that will see television pay £5.136 billion (let me write that out for you so you get a better idea - £5,136,000,000) to show live football between 2016 and 2019; or put another way Sky will be paying an average of £10.8 million pounds per game and BT around £7.6m.

This season, according to the BBC, the side that finishes bottom of the Premier League will walk away with a cool £99m. According to predictions from Diario AS, in Spain under the new system of distribution (calculating the euro at 1.15 to the £) that is more than every single Spanish club apart from - you’ve guessed it - Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Last season before the huge increase that has come in this time around, Aston Villa 'earned’ £66,662,215 despite finishing bottom after a lamentable campaign. That is more than every club in La Liga will earn this season under the new package apart from Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico.

But the good news is that Spanish clubs will indeed earn more money than before and the person most relieved to hear that will be the taxman who can probably guarantee that he will now be paid.

Similarly players and club suppliers can probably look forward to being paid now, but it is not all good news especially for the top Spanish clubs.

For the first time I can remember, top players are turning down the chance to join the really big Spanish clubs, most notably Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Let’s not mince our words here; Real Madrid wanted Paul Pogba to join them from Juventus, so much, it almost hurt. In the end they were blown out of the water by a Manchester United side prepared to offer so much more at every level of the negotiation, a club who trumped them every step of the way.

The sniffy stance taken by Real Madrid that this was 'crazy’ money and something they were going to walk away from suggests that what we have here is a club and a President that has never done deals that involved 'crazy’ money. Stuff and nonsense. The fact is they couldn’t compete with United. Period.

Little wonder that Zinadine Zidane is talking up the return of Alvaro Morata - who quite honestly would probably pay to play for the club - and Marco Asensio, back from a loan spell at Espanyol.

For the first time also players are turning down the chance to join Barcelona and not just for the loadsamoney Premier League.
Paco Alcácer has decided not to join the Catalan club because Valencia, after a deal was broken between Valencia owner, Peter Lim and Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, changed their mind scared of the consequences of dealing with fans that smell a rat in what is going on at the club.

Luciano Vietto also turned down the chance to move to Catalonia’s capital probably becasue what he is looking to do is kick start his career once again and he probably - not unreasonably - calculated that he would get more playing time at Sevilla’s Sanchez Pizjuan that at the Camp Nou.

Frenchman Kevin Gameiro came to the same conclusion when he opted to join Atletico Madrid in preference to Barcelona while Nolito - the one player that Luis Enrique really wanted - was not prepared to wait until it suited Barcelona bureaucratically to sign him, preferring instead to pledge his future with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

Meanwhile at Chelsea the wise words spoken by American chat show host, Johnny Carson ring wonderfully true. “The only thing money gives is the freedom of not worrying about money,” he said.
Atletico Madrid would have loved to have re-signed Diego Costa from Chelsea. Unfortunately any notions they might have held that the London club were going to let him go at a much lesser price that what they bought him for were swiftly disabused. If Atletico wanted him then they would have to pay MORE than what they sold him for.

That in a nutshell is the luxury that having a lot of money can give you. We don’t need it; take it or leave it. What an irony that it is particularly affecting the two clubs that who have for so long stood top of what has so often been that ragamuffin, dishevelled, heap that is the Spanish La Liga Primera Division.