Malaga chief decries Real, Barca influence
Malaga president Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Thani expressed his frustration over Real Madrid and Barcelona's dominance of La Liga's TV rights fee distribution.
By ESPNSTAR.com staff
The island-based side was bought over by the member of the Qatari royal family in 2010 and the Sheikh went about trying to revitalise the club's flagging fortunes. With the help of his financial clout, Malaga signed the likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Santi Cazorla, José Salomón Rondón, Júlio Baptista, Martín Demichelis, Jérémy Toulalan and Diego Buononatte in the past two seasons.
Buoyed by their new signings, the club achieved their best ever position in La Liga as they finished in fourth place last season. The islanders even managed to frustrate a record-breaking Real side as they held Los Blancos to a draw at the Santiago Bernabeu back in March.
Despite the positive end to the season, the Qatari businessman appears to have been frustrated by the inequitable nature of working conditions for the Spanish clubs and he made his feelings publicly known through a series of tweets on his personal account.
His ire appears to be primarily focused on how Real and Barca possess exclusive television rights, enabling the two to earn disproportionately higher revenue from broadcasting than the other clubs.
Aside from this perceived injustice, the Malaga official also criticised the apparent prevalence of bribing in the league, the need for an unbiased press and the alleged presence of rampant tax evasion as being factors that could contribute to La Liga's demise in the coming years.
Al-Thani stated that Barcelona and Real Madrid receive €135 million from their broadcasting fees while third-placed Valencia earn €65 million. Malaga, according to him, stand to earn only €13 million and he called for an open investigation by press that is "non-politicized by big clubs" in order to help shed further light on the matter.
"There are some clubs that evade taxes in their own way and you know them well," he wrote on his Twitter account.
"For small clubs, to not speak or ask for equal TV rights, how will the teams develop their clubs?
"I want to [request for an] open investigation by the free media that are non-politicized by big clubs.
"This is very dangerous and detrimental to the reputation of the Spanish league."
Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional (LFP), the organisation managing La Liga, has made no comment on the matter thus far. It is unlikely, however, that LFP will pursue an investigation over the allegations as they were made in a personal capacity as opposed to being a formal complaint by the club itself.