The president of the Spanish Football League (LFP), Javier Tebas, confirmed on Tuesday the bid by Telefónica, as revealed by AS (€1,350 million for three years) for the league’s international television rights. “I can confirm the offer,” said Tebas. “Telefónica have sent an official offer by fax. An interesting way to communicate things…I can assure that we, since naming Mediapro as an agency for international rights, have already made efforts to look into this during these 15 days and I can say already that this proposal is financially inadequate.”
“Spanish football is going to raise more money on an international level with a system that is the most appropriate for the league. We are never going to sell the rights to one body, unless it is a very exceptional case, they are to be sold to many territories. The amount and the form of Telefónica’s offer is inadequate. We have asked them for more information,” he added.
Tebas was speaking at a ceremony of the Sports Council, which took place to sign a manifesto to prevent and eradicate cheating in sporting competitions, and to help the European Council to adopt new legislation next week in Luxembourg. Miguel Cardenal and José Luis Sáez, of the Basketball Federation, were also in attendance, as well as other sporting bodies.
Tebas also spoke about other issues:
The sale of audiovisual rights: “The tender for the audiovidual rights on a national level will start on July 6 and there are various lots. We will allow 10 to 12 days to receive offers.”
Complaints from Real Madrid: “I don’t know if Florentino is mad at me. I say what I think. I talk a lot with Madrid. The president knows that he can talk whenever he wants. It cannot be strange what I said because I told him personally.”
Cristiano Ronaldo’s image rights: “I think that these rights were already in the hands of a third company. I do not know the details, but if it is true what has been published it will be a company of the president (Peter Lim at Valencia), it is not the same. And I think I could be wrong or confused about it because I don’t have the contracts, it could be that it is not a sporting exploitation and that it is only for Asia. It is not liked with the footballing world.”
Cheating: “We have to work hard to eradicate this scourge. No sport is alien to it and you have to work together. We have five people in the integrity department for this issue.”
Cheating at the end of this season?: “As we will see, in previous years I have already asked if it was a clean end to the season and in two months there have been two arrests…we have to wait. I hope the end of last season was cleaner than other years. This is not like the movies, it is more complicated, we don’t know straight away. We must continue to work.”
La Liga: “We decided to start on August 16, now we will see what the Federation and the union have to say. There is a timing problem, it is not a political problem. Hopefully [the start date] will be August 16 because it is the best date if we cannot decide the CSD (the Spanish government agency for sport) will.
Qatar: “There would be a loss of €65 million if the World Cup dates are changed. To change them to November would be very damaging because the league would be at a standstill for two months, it would be terrible for sponsors and for all the players who would not be involved in the World Cup, which is the majority. The prejudice is incredible, especially since Qatar are ready to go ahead in the summer or May. I don’t understand the change.”