With its financial resources being crushed by the Premier League, how long will La Liga s miserable days last?

After a long period of quarreling and tug-of-war, the La Liga overseas competition project has finally been implemented. Barcelona and Villarreal will cross the Atlantic before Christmas and come to the Miami Hard Rock Stadium to complete a ground-breaking showdown. From CVC's investment in shares to the confrontation between Tebas and Guardiola, from the player registration issues sweeping many teams to the uproar caused by the "European Super League", and now the public opinion storm caused by overseas games, La Liga is full of operational problems, and the road to catch up with the Premier League is full of thorns.

[La Liga continues to have disputes, the first league crown changes hands]

Relying on the business strategy of dividing gold and silver on a large scale and a relatively open management system, the Premier League has made remarkable achievements in the past 20 years, and its brand value has continued to rise. In the 2023/24 season, the Premier League's broadcast revenue will exceed 3.7 billion euros, which is three times that of La Liga. The broadcast revenue of Manchester City and Arsenal reached 228 million euros, and the revenue of the bottom team Sheffield United also reached 142 million euros, exceeding the 118 million euros of La Liga third-place Atletico Madrid.

Spain's population size is only 70% of that of the UK, its total GDP and pay TV users are less than half that of the opposite country, and the radiation ability of Spanish cannot be compared with English. It is very difficult for La Liga to compete with the Premier League for the global market. In the 2024 Deloitte club revenue rankings, three La Liga giants are among the top 20, and 9 Premier League teams have appeared around them.

American capital already accounts for half of the Premier League, and these professional sports teams have little desire to enter La Liga.

Since Tebas took office, La Liga has taken a series of measures to catch up with its opponents in an attempt to narrow the gap between the two in terms of revenue capabilities. Through the efforts of this personality chairman, La Liga broke through the "blockade" of Real Madrid and Barcelona and narrowed the gap with the Premier League by selling TV broadcast rights in packages. From 2013 to 2020, the total revenue of La Liga clubs increased by 76%, far exceeding the 20% growth rate of the Premier League during the same period, and the revenue increased from less than half of its opponents to 70%. In order to meet the needs of customers in the Asian market, La Liga is also working hard to improve the technical content of television broadcasts and add early games to expand its influence.

Unfortunately, after experiencing the impact of the black swan incident in the public health field, La Liga's revenue growth slowed down significantly, and the gap with the Premier League widened again. The business environment is not as good as that of the Premier League. It is difficult for La Liga teams to attract high-quality foreign investment. The financial pressure on major clubs has increased sharply, and a series of controversial incidents have followed.

The value of "advertising space" on the jerseys of small and medium-sized teams in La Liga is far less than that in the Premier League.

In the face of sudden crises, Real Madrid and Barcelona can still use their golden brands to avert danger. A large number of small and medium-sized teams do not have such good luck. In the past two or three seasons, La Liga's performance in the European competition has declined significantly. Real Madrid and Barcelona suffered losses due to poor recruitment, Atletico Madrid's record has not improved, and the Europa League and UEFA Europa League have completely become a foil for the Premier League. When the prestige of Sevilla and Valencia gradually faded away, teams such as Girona and Real Sociedad that replaced them in the European competition were completely unable to shoulder the important task of grabbing points for La Liga.

In the Europa League and UEFA Champions League, La Liga teams have lost their dominance.

[The first league has become history, struggling to survive is the right way]

Before 2020, Real Madrid had achieved operating cash receipts of more than 110 million euros for many consecutive years, and its annual net profit could always be maintained at more than 30 million euros. Florentino used this to create the strongest lineup in team history for Zidane (2016/17 season). Even though the European leagues later fell into an empty-field crisis and many giants suffered losses in the hundreds of millions, Florentino's team still achieved financial balance by selling players and controlling salaries. Such efficient operating capabilities put many listed companies (Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund, etc.) to shame.

As a member club, there are no shareholders who can continue to provide blood, and the Bernabeu renovation project has occupied the club's debt financing limit. In order to maintain financial stability, Real Madrid can only pay the price of performance. Both Zidane and Ancelotti have led the "Most Already" team into the new season, and the tried and tested visa-free method has attracted countless controversies. With signing funds being significantly compressed, Real Madrid has increased its efforts to tap internal potential, and the elite echelons represented by Raul Asensio, Juan Martinez and Chema Andres have become the beneficiaries.

Florentino did not hesitate to offend his colleagues in order to avoid a visa, and Laporta became a laughing stock because of his leverage play. In the past few years, Laporta has established an action team composed of many economists, launched a dazzling "financial package", activated leverage transactions of about 1 billion euros, and continuously helped Barcelona avoid danger. Real Madrid relied on echelon players for emergencies, and Barcelona's young players also "benefited" from the club's financial crisis. Laporta invited Flick (and assistant coach Thiago) to coach precisely to make full use of La Masia's resources.

This season, Elche remained undefeated in the first 7 rounds of La Liga.

Real Madrid and Barcelona can still survive the lean years with their surplus food, but the majority of small and medium-sized teams in La Liga have fallen into an unsustainable situation. Before this national team match day, the newly promoted Elche, which invested only 6.75 million euros in the summer window, had just suffered its first defeat of the season (in the 8th round). Another newly promoted team, Real Oviedo, had won two victories from Valencia and Real Sociedad. The current weakness of the middle-class group is evident.

Since winning the Europa League in the 2022/23 season, Sevilla has experienced an unimaginable decline. They spent only 250,000 euros on signings in this summer window. After becoming a high-quality supplier to Arsenal, Real Sociedad also joined the La Liga relegation team.. Valencia has already overdrawn the reputation accumulated in the glorious era at the turn of the century. They only spent 11.6 million euros on signings under the huge pressure of relegation. The Spaniard has completed the change of flag, and Getafe is about to become Liverpool's "satellite team".

Villarreal completed a signing expenditure of 100 million euros in the 2025 summer window, becoming an outlier in La Liga. However, considering that the Yellow Submarine has cut back on food and clothing for two consecutive summer windows (2022 & 2023), and the three main players in the team (Baena, Pino and Barry) have been cashed out at high positions, this large investment by the ceramic king is destined to be just an accident.

Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao were powerless in front of Manchester United. The Europa League runner-up became Amorin's "gold medal".

La Liga and European teams once represented a collective tightening of money. Not only were they unable to participate in the arms race, their appeal to young players was no longer what it used to be. While the likes of Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth spend heavily to build global talent networks, young players from Latin America, Africa and East Asia have more options to choose from. The midstream group has declined, the competitiveness of La Liga teams in the Europa League and UEFA Europa League has continued to decline, and the Premier League's team advantage in the European war has become increasingly obvious.

[It is not easy to advance long-term plans, and the "meritorious chairman" is notorious]

In order to improve the overall competitiveness of the league and help small and medium-sized teams get out of trouble, Tebas has long proposed the goal of "allowing downstream teams to achieve 60 million euros in revenue." UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) focuses on correction and punishment, while La Liga sets high barriers to entry and strictly controls each team's spending and signing caps. Before the start of the new season, each team needs to submit financial statements, detail cash flow changes, and estimate operating costs. The league will use this as a basis to set the transfer spending cap for each team and make every effort to mitigate risks.

Just like the CVC investment plan to support small and medium-sized teams, these terms that restrict player registration are also intended to narrow the gap between the "Western Super League" group and other teams. Due to too many debts during the Bartomeu era, Barcelona unfortunately fell victim to La Liga's version of the Financial Fair Play Act.

Tebas has endured infamy and criticism, but in exchange for the new life of the La Liga team. It is precisely thanks to the safety net woven by these invisible hands that most La Liga teams have survived the black swan events in previous years. Barcelona has encountered difficulties in player registration in several consecutive transfer windows, but their road ahead has ushered in the dawn. When new financing is in place and the new Camp Nou is put into use, the Red and Blues will be able to get out of the gloom. Before the start of this season, many small and medium-sized teams were also troubled by the problem of difficulty in player registration. This was expected by Tebas. The series of measures he launched will take a longer time to be effective.