Kieran Maguire rubbishes Javier Tebas claim as Liverpool ‘arms race’ intensifies
Javier Tebas is talking nonsense – the Premier League is sustainable even though the likes of Liverpool are vastly outspending their rivals on the continent.
That is the view of finance guru Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the La Liga president’s controversial remarks about the monetary might of the English game.
As quoted by The Guardian earlier this month (12 January), Tebas insisted: “The Premier League is not a sustainable model [as] they are financed by the owners with enormous amounts of money, and that is distorting the market.”
The Premier League is the only major division in Europe to have emerged from the pandemic in an arguably stronger financial position than when they entered it.
Only Man City and Real Madrid earned more money in 2021-22 than Liverpool, who trousered a club-record £594.3million and have been among Europe’s biggest spenders in the last decade.
Maguire, however, rejects Tebas’ claim that the model is unworkable in the long run.
“The Premier League is sustainable,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“It has been going on for 30 years and during that period, only one club has ever gone into administration. That was Portsmouth and that is because it had a series of owners who treated it as a glorified financial pass-the-parcel game.
“Having wealthy owners has helped some clubs. It could be argued that it has created an arms race in terms of wages, which has made things more challenging.
“But what we have seen in recent years is the rise of the clubs that spend smarter rather than bigger, and I would include Liverpool in that. They have ended up doing things slightly differently.
“What Tebas is ignoring is that the Premier League is a competitive league. That is not the case in Spain.
“It generates twice as much money in terms of broadcast revenue. It is broadcast to 188 countries. It takes advantage of the fact that English is the most common second language around the world. That makes it attractive to global sponsors.
“The danger from Tebas’ point of view is that this is only going one way. The Premier League’s level of growth is not being matched by its competitors in Europe.“
In other news, Liverpool handed “huge” Jude Bellingham boost as Borussia Dortmund offer tabled.