Strike endangers opening of Spanish league

Posted Friday, August 19, 2011 by YAHOO Sport

BARCELONA, Spain (AP)—While Europe welcomes the arrival of a new football season, the Spanish league— home to the world’s top players in Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo— is mired in a labor conflict set to endanger its opening rounds.

Spanish players are resolute that they will begin a strike on Friday for the first time in 27 years over a new collective bargaining agreement with improved salary guarantees.

Recent talks between the Association of Spanish Football Players (AFE) and Spanish league officials have failed to bridge the differences. Unless a last-minute deal is reached in tomorrow’s meeting between the two sides, Spain’s 42 first- and second-division teams will strike until next Monday.

The work stoppage will delay the league’s first round of games that was set to feature Athletic Bilbao at Real Madrid and a trip by three-time defending champion Barcelona to the revamped Malaga.

“It’s a bit weird the situation, because in England everything is very strict and disciplined and these things don’t normally happen,” said Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas, who returned to his boyhood team this week after eight years with Arsenal.

“I think Spanish football could learn quite a bit from English football in this case,” the 24-year-old Spain international added. “In England, the management is so well organized all we do is just play football.”

The conflict is all about player wages.

Players want better guarantees with clubs owing up to $72 million in unpaid salaries to more than 200 players.

The league, for its part, has proposed to create a fund for players whose teams are under bankruptcy protection that would guarantee a minimum annual salary of ?240,000 ($345,000) for players in the first division and ?120,000 ($172,000) for those in the second division. It says this is “the maximum the league’s economic capacity” can afford.

The players’ association, however, says that is not enough.

“The fund to guarantee salaries is a system imposed by the league so that the teams can continue to take advantage of bankruptcy protection with complete impunity,” the AFE said in a statement.

At the center of the dispute is Spain’s bankruptcy law, which allows insolvent clubs to re-negotiate or delay paying player salaries—just like other outstanding debts—while under bankruptcy protection.

The players’ association wants to put on end to this, and supports legislation making its way though the Spanish parliament that would immediately relegate clubs to the third division if they become insolvent and are unable to meet their payrolls. It is expected to pass in September, but wouldn’t go into effect until the end of this season.

There are currently six topflight clubs and a number of second-division clubs in bankruptcy protection.

Villarreal president Fernando Roig said recently that while he does not agree with the AFE’s method, he supports the move to reform the league’s financial system.

“I completely agree with the AFE because it wants the current bankruptcy law to disappear forever,” he said. “The fact that of the 20 teams that are bankrupt in Europe all but one is Spanish is simply embarrassing.”

But experts say there is a larger, economic problem facing the league.

Jesus Palau, professor of financial control and management at the ESADE Business School, says that players’ contracts are simply too big.

“I think the underlying problem is that player salaries are completely out of proportion to the club’s income,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “Everything goes to paying players.”

Some clubs are resigned to the fact that they will be without their players during the coming days. Espanyol and Real Betis, for instance, have announced on their websites that their squads would honor the strike and not play or train this weekend.

Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho said he had no part in the conflict but he would stand by his players’ decision.

“That’s not my (problem, but) if it’s a decision by the players I have to respect that,” he said. “If we have to play next weekend we are ready to play.”

Other clubs have direct conflicts with the strike.

Villarreal faces a critical game on Tuesday when it must rally from a 1-0 deficit against Danish club Odense in its Champions League qualifying round series. The club has announced its players are expected to report for training Friday morning.

Barcelona, meanwhile, told The AP that it has no plans to cancel its friendly with Italian club Napoli scheduled at Camp Nou on Monday.

If tomorrow’s meeting does not lead to a surprise breakthrough, the players and league will sit down again on Saturday and Monday.

Barring a deal over the next few days, the AFE plans to continue the work stoppage the following weekend, delaying the second round as well.

The league wouldn’t begin until Sept. 10 under such a scenario. The league has not announced if the games scheduled for the first week would then be played or if the calendar would be reshuffled.

“It looks like that until Christmas there are no possible dates for the games,” said Real Sociedad midfielder Xabi Prieto. “So if we have to we’ll play during the Christmas break. Evidently we aren’t used to that.”

Since its creation in 1979, the AFE has called three previous strikes, the last coming in 1984.