Pep Guardiola and Javier Tebas have clashed in an unexpected war of words after the City manager encouraged the LaLiga president to “learn from a league such as the Premier League” and better distribute the money from television rights, giving clubs access to greater financial resources which they can use to make signings and bolster their squads.
Javier Tebas, staying true to form, didn’t take long to respond. In a statement posted on his official Twitter account, Tebas criticised Guardiola and suggested that he learn about “the football macro-economy, the effect of state-owned clubs on wage inflation, demographics, the penetration of pay-per-view games and China”.
Pep Guardiola didn’t take the words of the LaLiga chief lying down. Instead, he launched a counter attack via his personal Twitter account, asking Tebas for an explanation of the poor state of Spanish football despite the great success of its clubs over recent years, such as the all-conquering Barça side that he coached during the first half of the last decade.
“Javier, the Spanish League over the last two decades: Barça and [Real] Madrid have won loads of Champions Leagues. Loads. Valencia and Atlético have been runners-up in the Champions League. Sevilla have dominated the Europa League, and Villarreal won the last one. The national team won the European Championship with Luis Aragonés, and the World Cup and European Championship with Vicente del Bosque. Messi and Ronaldo have done things [in the Spanish league] that have never been seen before, and which will never be seen again. We are loved and admired by everyone around the world…but the problem is with state-owned clubs. You must know a lot about state-owned clubs, right?”, wrote Guardiola in his response to Tebas’ tweet.
“I don’t understand anything about the football macro-economy, demographics, pay-per-view penetration or China. That’s your job. And you need to tell us why we’re still miles away from the Premier League, despite two amazing decades of Spanish football. You need to tell us why, and you need to fix it”.
2 thoughts on “Why Guardiola is angry with LaLiga president Tebas”