LA LIGA MAY BE BLACKED OUT BY PLAYERS STRIKE
Sunday, July 6th, 2008 by Stuart Stratford
In marked contrast to the sums of money being spent by the big two of the Primera Division, is the case last year of UD Levante, the bottom team, relegated and essentially bankrupt. They did not pay the players regularly or at all, for large parts of the season and look certain to slide through the Segundo Division into the third level of Spanish football unless changes take place at the club very quickly. The lessons of their demise are not being learned though and is the root of a clash between the league and players union.
AS reports that the union want the league to change the insolvency rules to ensure that players salaries are paid before anyone else in these situations. They are right to be nervous; Spanish top flight clubs have a recent history of financial mismanagement with even the champions, Real Madrid, teetering on the edge of this abyss at the start of the century, saved only by the sale of land for dubious values.
If the two sides cannot reach an agreement before the start of the season, the union has the mandate to call for strike action with echoes of the PFA dispute over Broadcasting revenues in England. Then the players voted overwhelmingly to strike if the argument was not resolved which led to the clubs backing down from reducing the moneys paid to the PFA. The Spanish dispute is more crucial than even that; this is the players wages and not all earn the multi-million euro salaries of the elite, a higher proportion need to pay their bills every month.
With the inflated transfer fees paid for players in the Champions League sides, it is hard to see any justification on moral grounds that the clubs have to not accede to the request of the players union. In football though, morals and commonsense are two qualities in short supply.
Tags: Football, La Liga, Soccer, Spain
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