2 billion at stake with the schedule conflict

• Schedules: Clubs, with the exception of Real Madrid, in arms against Rubiales

Spanish football will enter today through the door of the Commercial Court number 2 of Madrid in the best economic moment in its history and fears leaving it plunged into one of the most critical of recent times. That is the importance of the decision that as of today Judge Andrés Sánchez Magro must take. Technically, its task is to determine whether the competition to set the schedules of the First and Second matches corresponds only to LaLiga or if the RFEF legally has the authority to decide that it cannot be played on certain days and times, as it intends to do with Fridays and Mondays. In practice, this judicial decision will determine the validity - or not - of the television rights exploitation contracts for the next three seasons, valued at 2,000 million euros , which represents, on average, 60% of the total budget of the clubs Until now, this issue has been resolved through agreements between the RFEF and LaLiga in which it was agreed that the employer enjoyed freedom to set schedules. The refusal of Luis Rubiales , president of the Federation, to give continuity to that agreement, repealing that competence as his own, puts in check television contracts signed previously that include Mondays and Fridays and at whose bases the RFEF did not oppose in any moment. The winners of the rights have already warned that they could take legal action if the conditions of those contracts are not respected, which for some clubs account for more than 90% of their annual budget.

LaLiga and the clubs defend that the Royal Decree Law 5/2015 that regulated the centralized sale of television rights recognizes the powers to freely set schedules, while the RFEF denies that it is so and considers that, in the absence of a mention Specific legal, the competition is yours as the highest authority of national football . Beyond the legal dispute, the clubs reproach Rubiales for putting his economic support at serious risk, ignoring the television contracts already signed.

It could take weeks or months for the judge to take a final resolution, but it is planned that between today and Friday, he will adopt precautionary measures that clarify whether the competition starts on Friday 16 or Saturday 17 . The clubs and LaLiga are confident that the decision is the least economically burdensome. That is, give them the reason in a precautionary way. The impact of the ban on playing on Fridays and Mondays would be gigantic for the club's economy, as they warned a week ago. According to a detailed report prepared by LaLiga to which EL MUNDO has had access, the First Division would lose 9,728,000 spectators per season in the event that the conference focused on Saturdays and Sundays. And that only in Spain, regardless of the rest of the world .

The televisions, the other big injured

The magnitude of this figure is based on the difference in television audience of pay parties on Fridays and Mondays with respect to those played on Saturdays and Sundays simultaneously (that is, when there are at least two clashes to At the same hour). Joining two matches at the same time on Saturday or Sunday - as the RFEF proposal would require - would cause those two clashes to be seen by some 165,000 people less than if one of them is played over the weekend and another one on Monday or Friday, as until now. Each of those meetings that would be played in overlapping schedules - four per day - would see its audience decline approximately between 12% and 14%.

Subtracting, as the RFEF intends, the two bands that are left out of the weekend, the televisions with rights would find that LaLiga, the product that they have already hired, would provide them with six hours less of the weekly schedule than planned, which they should fill out With other content. With the added problem that some foreign operators only have one channel in which to be able to broadcast Spanish football, so some of the overlapping parties could only schedule them in deferred.

In the case of Spain, the channel that has been enabled in recent seasons when two different matches coincide (and that remains black for the rest of the time) enjoys very low audiences, around 40% of what the meetings of I pay Mondays and Fridays . And, of course, having two parties at the same time also negatively impacts the audience of the reference channel, approximately an additional 12% .

The televisions with rights are fully aware of all these factors and have already warned LaLiga of the economic damages that the overlapping of parties that the RFEF wishes to impose would have on them. Damages for which they could take legal action for breach of contract, as they have already warned, plunging the sector into a scenario of unprecedented economic uncertainty. Hence, the decision of judge Sánchez Magro is going to be one of the most important in the recent history of Spanish football.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• RFEF
• THE WORLD
• Luis Rubiales
• sports
• football
• Spanish league

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