How Madrid and Barca have hurt La Liga
It is clear to me that Madrid and Barca have hurt La Liga. I grew up watching a Liga where any team could win, where teams like Bilbao, Deportivo, Valencia, Sevilla and Atletico won titles. Now no one expects anyone but Madrid and Barca to win. Why is this? How come this hasn't happened in the other major leagues like the Premiership?
Here are my thoughts:
Madrid and Barcelona have an annual budget that's is 4 times higher than any other team in La Liga. Around 400 million euros each.The next closest teams are Sevilla at 90 mil and Atletico at 80 mil a piece.
Why the huge gap? Does this exist in other leagues? The answer is no, the English Premier League (EPL) has several teams with similarly large budgets. This is due to the EPL having had a huge influx of cash from outside owners and a better TV profit sharing plan.
Lets look at the foreign owners for a moment. Out of the 20 EPL teams only 8 are owned by Englishmen. Chelsea, the most well known team was bought in 2003 by Roman Abramovich. Since his arrival he has spent more than 700 million euros and what have we gotten for it? Well prior to Abramovich, Chelsea had a grand total of 1 first division title in 1955, and 1 FA cup in 1970. Since Abramovich they have won 3 league titles, 3 FA cups and were runner up in the Champions league. Nice little turn around. Now Manchester City owner Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is trying to copy Abramovich’s success. He has spent more than 750 million euros since his take over in 2007. Man City still have not won a title with their new owners but
are in the running every year, and on the right track.
So that being said why hasn't Spain gotten this influx of foreign owners? In my opinion it is due to the dominance of Madrid and Barca in the league. These owners want to win titles and the investment needed to compete with Madrid and Barca is so ridiculous that no one has
wanted to take them on. No one is going to spend 700+ million euros just to get 3rd place. So none have come.
The problem is that with out this influx of cash the other teams in La Liga wont be able to compete. As long as things stay as they are the league will be diminished and the only question will be by how many points Madrid or Barca win.
So how do we fix it? One way is to find some rich people that want to pump 1 Billion euros into a club so that they can compete. Or La Liga can finally do a better job with the revenue split of the TV rights. Will this solve the problem no but it will help and you have to start somewhere.