Bit rich of Spain’s elite to decry state funding

IF UEFA are serious about investigating state-subsidised football they know where to start: Spain. It is ironic in the extreme that La Liga president Javier Tebas wants European football’s governing body to discipline Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. Spain’s elite clubs have been receiving state aid for over a quarter of a century. Tebas is trying to pressurise UEFA to sanction these Gulf state interlopers, at the request of Real Madrid and Barcelona, who fear their supremacy is under threat. Tebas says the sovereign wealth of PSG and City ‘distorts European competitions’ and is ‘irreparably harming football’. Well, Spain would know all about that. It was July 2016 when European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager demanded the repayment of millions in soft loans, tax breaks and sweetheart property deals given to seven La Liga clubs. Chief among them? Real Madrid and Barcelona. Yet there is a big difference between City having the properly legal and open backing of Abu Dhabi, and the secret and dodgy land sale cut

between Real Madrid and the city government. As ever, clubs shouting loudest about fairness are those that fear a challenge to the old order, having acted unfairly for so long. Bayern Munich also object, while being as good as Germany’s official football club. They buy the best players from their rivals, turned the Bundesliga into a one-team league, attract the wealthiest German sponsors, and the city and state gave ¤210million in infrastructure support for their new ground. They are very pious about state-funded football, too, you can be sure.