La Liga Chief Javier Tebas Takes His Feud With PSG President to Court

“He knows exactly what he is doing,” Tebas said of al-Khelaifi. “He’s trying to get to the point where clubs will tell the president of the league we prefer to get the money and have you talk less.”

BeIN made its disdain for Tebas clear in its response. “If we ran our operations reacting to certain executive’s comments on others within the sports industry, we wouldn’t be in business,” the company said.

Much of Tebas’s fury about P.S.G., and al-Khelaifi, stems from the French club’s ability to lure star players from La Liga, spending that he contends has unfairly altered the game’s economics. In 2017, P.S.G. broke the world transfer record when it paid 222 million euros, at the time more than double the highest amount previously paid for a player, to acquire the Brazilian star Neymar from Barcelona. It also managed to lure Lionel Messi to Paris in 2021 after Barcelona could not afford to renew his contract. And earlier this year, P.S.G. paid the French star Kylian Mbappé a signing-on fee of more than $100 million to reject the overtures of Real Madrid.

While other soccer leagues and executives have privately expressed concerns about the spending by state-owned teams, Tebas has been by far the most outspoken. “People in football are cowards,” Tebas said Wednesday, explaining why others have not been as outspoken as he has about the market-altering influence of teams like P.S.G. and Manchester City. “Football executives always want to make sure they have good relations and eat well instead of stepping outside their comfort zone.”

Al-Khelaifi has had little use for Tebas’s critiques; in June, he said he would not take lessons from Tebas, suggesting what the Spaniard had to say was not relevant.

For UEFA, the running dispute between two of its most prominent voices is proving to be awkward because both Tebas and al-Khelaifi are members of its executive board. The latest court fight will do little to lower the temperature, and it is not over.

The ruling freezing beIN’s assets, according to the document, is only a temporary measure; the court will hold a full hearing on the merits of the case, but the timetable is unclear.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/sports/soccer/javier-tebas-psg-bein.html