Spain's two largest soccer clubs together with Athletic Bilbao - which are all owned by their members instead of by corporates - accused LaLiga's administrator of exceeding the organisation's legal authority and acting coercively.
"The clubs are sovereign members of LaLiga, not prisoners of its managers," they said in an open letter. "All these issues are so serious that they oblige the clubs to take the necessary legal steps to protect their legitimate interests," they added, after listing several aspects of the CVC arrangement, such as those related to the clubs' audiovisual rights, they said were illegal.The deal is, however, due to receive final approval on Dec. 10 and has been backed by 38 of the 42 clubs comprising LaLiga in a first round of voting.
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bilbao reject the deal and have advanced an alternative proposal which would see JPMorgan, Bank of America and HSBC jointly lend 2 billion euros in exchange for a fixed annual payment of 115 million euros for 25 years, a document seen by Reuters last week showed. The three say their proposal would cost Spanish clubs around 900 million euros and clubs would retain control of their audiovisual rights. They say the CVC deal would have a price tag of 13.1 billion euros.Article type: metered