Barcelona-centric Rosell's 16 team vision

A few weeks back, during a meeting of the European Club Association (ECA), the president of FC Barcelona, Sandro Rosell proposed a reduction in the number of teams competing in la Primera Liga from 20 to 16, on the grounds that it would protect the integrity of Europe’s second most popular league. His attempts to convince the other members that a more streamline league would be for the greater good were immediately shot down as being utterly disingenuous, with chief executive of the English Premier League, Richard Scudamore labelling his plans as “Barcelona-centric”.

In press mode

His argument for cutting the amount of clubs was twofold. Firstly, a decreased number of teams would ease fixture congestion and could even allow for big European clashes to take place on the weekend rather than during the week, as is now the case. And secondly, (according to him) such a move would increase competitiveness within the Spanish top flight, away from the current duopoly enjoyed by his Catalan charges and their fierce rivals, Real Madrid.

To see where Jon Cryer’s long lost brother was coming from, it’s worth taking a look at his true intentions.

To begin with, player fatigue is clearly a real concern for his club: not including international matches, for which the azulgrana tree is particularly fruit bearing (the Spanish national team alone consists of eight from it’s ranks), Barca played 62 competitive matches last season in all competitions, including the league, the Champions League, the Copa del Rey, the domestic Supercopa and the UEFA Super Cup. This season, depending on how far they progress through these contests (quite far I’d imagine), that figure could be surpassed as they also have the extra “burden” of the World Club Cup next month in Japan.

Lionel Messi, while togging out for his native Argentina against Colombia last week, raised his own concerns about how the relentless schedule has been sapping him of energy. And in fairness to la pulga, the degree to which he is used by both club and country is bound to take it’s toll: since 2 July he has only had a 63 minute breather from play for either side, when he started as a sub against Real Sociedad in September. In other words, out of the last 27 games he has played 2,397 minutes, an average of 88.77 minutes per game. Although he somewhat discredited the notion of being overexerted last Saturday, by effortlessly running riot at home against Zaragoza in a routine league win, one expects that the exhaustingly high demands being placed upon Barca’s relatively small squad will eventually catch up with the Spanish and European champions.

Rosell, well aware of his players’ physical constraints, is politically savvy enough to know that getting your way involves an element of cloaking your true intentions.

For one, it is more likely that he was gunning for a more realistic reduction to 18 teams rather than 16, but in classic negotiating style suggested the more dramatic cut in the hope of coming to a “compromised” agreement.

Messi feeling the effects while on international duty

Also, in a measure to butter up the La Liga clubs outside the top two with his plan, the 47 year old astutely appealed to their most basic of sensibilities: money. Arguing for more stringent financial controls to curtail, among other things, the arrival of more foreign owners (a la Racing Santander and Malaga) the Barca president claimed that a move to a more manageable number of teams would swing the balance of power back towards the clubs and away from other parties, “FIFA, UEFA and national federations are reaping more and more, agents and players are earning more, but the clubs lose out annually. There’s something wrong with this equation”.

Self protectionism is a natural instinct, one which Rosell is not immune to, so coming out with Marxist statements like the one above seems a bit rich, especially given how his club enjoys roughly 22.5% of the current TV rights money. It doesn’t need explaining that the distribution of wealth between the 20 La Liga clubs significantly favours the big two, making the Spanish league completely uncompetitive.

A new agreement in which TV revenues will be shared out more evenly is being hammered now, to begin at the start of the 2015/16 season. However, this new deal will still preserve Barcelona and Real Madrid’s dominance, as although their slice of the pie would drop to 17% each, the next highest earners, Atlético Madrid and Valencia, would only gain a mere 5.5% each in comparison.

With this in mind, Rosell’s request to concentrate the league is more likely him trying to ensure that the value of this 17% rises, thereby guaranteeing that the gulf between Spain’s have’s and have not’s continues to grow.

Rosell’s manoeuvrings to keep the existing status quo are fantastic from a Barcelona point of view, but ultimately his is a very short-sighted vision of the future. If things carry on like this La Liga is in real danger of becoming (dare I say it?) worse than the SPL.