Uli Hoeness tears Spanish football a new one

Klaus

Bayern Munich director says his country has paid for Ronaldo and Messi

An angry Uli Hoeness, president of Bayern Munich and former player, has launched a blistering attack on Spanish football and it's relation to the Spanish economy.

He was commenting on news that clubs in La Liga owe hundreds of millions to the Spanish government in unpaid tax and that deals will have to be reached for it's repayment which will likely see a lot of it wiped off and never recouped.

Hoeness, quoted in Sport.es, said "It is unthinkable. We paid hundreds of millions of Euros (to Spain) to break out of the s*** (econonic strife) and then the clubs are exempted from paying the debt to pay for stars like Cristiano or Messi. This cannot be."

Clubs in Germany tend to be very well run financially and have been amongst the most in favour of new Financial Fair Play rules. Hoeness finds it a unacceptable situation when Bayern can't afford the very highest transfer fees and wages but clubs in Spain can pay these sums whilst owing money to the government, a government being helped through the economic crisis - in his opinion - by taxpayers money from Germany.

It should be an interesting situation at the Champions League draw on Friday when representatives from all three clubs will get to discuss their financial strategies in person.

It was revealed the other day that Barcelona and Real Madrid maintain a debt with finance of €752 million and have a further debt of €10.6 million for Social Security. Staggering sums. Madrid alone owe more money than the entire Bundesliga apparently.

est

He's right, it's a disgrace.

banduan

they're getting WHAT? I didn't know that!

y va marquer

No better way to distract and drug the masses - let them continue to watch their football clubs dominating and winning big.

Essentially isn't it kind of like state funded financial and social doping?

Ultimately the poor sods supporting those clubs will personally carry the financial burden of the debt that those clubs refuse to pay.
Unbelievable.
Would make me want to riot if I supported either one of them.

squallkid

Would you really riot if your club was picking up at least 3 trophies a season, every season?

And you had the best players in the world on your team.

I get what you're saying that it isn't fair that the fans of the La Liga's big two will have to shoulder the financial burden but I doubt any of them will give a rat's ass once they are winning things.

You didn't see a single Hicks and gillets out banner during the 2008-09 season when Liverpool finished second, it's only once things went tits up on the field did Pool fans start making a racket. So unless Barcelona and Madrid suddenly implode with regards to their on the pitch results and the fans kick up a shitstorm, nothing much will change.

Biggus

Yeah but they're cheats and criminals just as much as Chelsea are, thats how Barcelona and Madrid win their trophies.
It shows you the whole farce that is Platini's FFP, I've been saying this for ages and now I'm glad some of the top brass in clubs are saying it too.

y va marquer

squallkid wrote:
Would you really riot if your club was picking up at least 3 trophies a season, every season?

And you had the best players in the world on your team.

I get what you're saying that it isn't fair that the fans of the La Liga's big two will have to shoulder the financial burden but I doubt any of them will give a rat's ass once they are winning things.

You didn't see a single Hicks and gillets out banner during the 2008-09 season when Liverpool finished second, it's only once things went tits up on the field did Pool fans start making a racket. So unless Barcelona and Madrid suddenly implode with regards to their on the pitch results and the fans kick up a shitstorm, nothing much will change.

Yeah, I definitely would, if their refusal to pay their debt meant massively higher taxes for me in order that the state can repay the money borrowed to plug the black hole created by the money owed by these clubs.
This involves far more than just buying a ticket to see Barca or Madrid play, or a shirt with Messi's name on the back.

It's about the state absolving those responsible for this enormous debt of the obligation to repay that debt, and imposing this responsibility on people who had zero involvement in accruing the debt in the first place.

That's worth a riot in my book.

DKGooner

It's good that Hoeness is making an issue of it, though I'm not sure how much he and Bayern can do by themselves. More clubs should start asking questions and maybe even politicians. It is up to Platini and the Spanish government to sort it out as it's impact is not only on the integrity of football, but on the current European fiscal problem.

kamikaze

it's a disgrace, both clubs should be forced into adminstration if their cash flow is very much in the red. bundesliga is far and away the best league in the world in terms of how things are set up and run.

Meatwad

and real madrid and barca are laughing all the way to football domination. german taxpayers subsidizing the spanish elite. spain, i salute your ballsiness and germany (and the rest of the EU creditor countries), i laugh at your stupidity.

at least over here when taxpayers are being taken for a ride (building all expense paid facilities for billionaires) it's by sports teams in their own city.

Ray

How platini has done nothing about this just shows how corrupt and xenophobic football leaders are in fifa uefa and the fa, time for new people on all three who are tested before they can apply to be in charge.

Biggus

😆 Thats how Wenger should be trying to parrot Bara, not their boring football.

banduan

seriously, though, why aren't more clubs up in arms about this?

I know it's not too far different from Citeh, but we're talking about using public funds to prop up mismanagement- public funds that the country cannot afford to use up!

Klaus

The unfortunate answer is that they get away with it because 99% of Spain support either Barcelona or Real Madrid in some form.

Ricky1985

I don't take La Liga seriously any more, it's a joke League to me, with two clubs that have cheated their way to total domination. Zero respect for anything Real Madrid and Barcelona achieve there. Their fans should be ashamed of their clubs' behaviour.

Rex

What about that side in 7th place in La Liga that recently crushed the best team in the PL? They don´t count either Ricky?

Klaus

Rex is right. The huge gap between the top two teams and everyone else makes the league a bit boring but Premier League is boring too in that aspect. Bilbao, Valencia and Atletico Madrid are not jokes though. I think they'd quite easily beat anyone outside the top four in England. Malaga are up-and-coming too. Don't confuse Barcelona and Real's cheating with a lack of domestic strength.

Ricky1985

Bilbao are unique team, with a special manager, and have seen an emergence of talented, albeit inconsistent (hence the their League position), young players. And, to be fair, Basle gave United a pretty big tonking in both their games with them, too - doesn't mean the Swiss League is any stronger for those two games.

Villarreal and Valencia hardly did themselves proud in the Champions League, did they.

Regardless of that, the main point is Real Madrid and Barcelona have turned the competition into a joke, and I refuse to take it seriously.

Klaus

Ricky1985 wrote:
Villarreal and Valencia hardly did themselves proud in the Champions League, did they.

Neither did we. 😐

Ricky1985 wrote:
Regardless of that, the main point is Real Madrid and Barcelona have turned the competition into a joke, and I refuse to take it seriously.

Same way Chelsea and United have turned Premier League into a joke. We might get another financially doped team in City to mix things up soon, which is roughly the equivalent of what's happening in La Liga right now with Malaga.

Ricky1985

I don't agree. What Barcelona and Real have done is far worse, they've taken away any chance the other clubs had of competing against them in the League, and also made it far more difficult for them to compete for good players with clubs from other European Leagues that don't allow the bigger clubs to write their own cheque at the start of the season. Absolutely disgusting.

In the Premier League we don't have it perfect, far from it; the Bundesliga is pretty close in my opinion, but we still have every team getting their equal share of the money the competition can draw in. Man City and Chelsea are cheats, of course they are, but at least we have 4 or 5 other teams that have big players and big budgets.