In a world where the enemy of my enemy is my friend, we can close our eyes to one or two ideological differences, or even concede a big gap. This is how Javier Tebas, boss of the Spanish League and close to the Iberian far right, joined forces with Juan Branco, a lawyer on the opposite side, giving rise to the most improbable featuring of the summer. Both are driven by different interests that go through a single opponent: PSG. Paris would be “the fault”, to use the words of Me Branco, the door between a world of football without faith or law and another regulated, which is what the lawyer says he wants to aim for.
Javier Tebas has slightly less noble ambitions, but these have the merit of being more legible. It is a matter of purely and simply pissing off Paris Saint-Germain and by extension the new rich, who have been encroaching on the territory of the Spanish behemoths for a good ten years now.
Repeal objective
It is therefore under the aegis of Juan Branco, whose philosophy teacher at Sciences Po, Thibaud Leplat, reminded us that it was difficult to take seriously a lawyer who puts his name in larger print than his client’s, that the La Liga boss has filed a complaint against PSG with UEFA. The reason ? Non-compliance with the rules of financial fair play following the extension of Kylian Mbappé in the capital. “Porque” Tebas believes that the LFP should never have approved the contract of its star.
Thus, La Liga’s first request will concern “the repeal of the approval decisions taken by the LFP relating to any contract signed by PSG after June 25, 2021. [date de la dernière présentation des comptes devant la DNCG] “. It will only escape the most discerning, in addition to Mbappé’s contract, those signed by Lionel Messi and the other recruits of last summer, specifies Me Branco.
If the previous steps are unsuccessful, he says he wants to act before the Paris administrative court. In the event of failure on the national ground, the lawyer will intervene at European level in order to “request the European Commission to ask it to intervene to harmonize the regulations”, or even initiate “a formal procedure then for abuse of a dominant position” and finally, at the end of the process, attack before the European Court of Justice. An entire program.
Al-Khelaïfi annoyed
Nasser Al-Khelaïfi looks at all this with an air half amused, half annoyed. “Who is Tebas? I don’t know this person,” the Parisian president was initially ironic in an interview with Mark, before frowning. “We don’t meddle in the affairs of other clubs, other leagues or federations, it’s not our style. But I will not accept that others give us lessons. […] Every year, every summer, it’s the same thing. Suddenly, it’s financial fair play, then supposedly we don’t respect others but I’m clear: we know what we can do, who we can sign, we know better than him what we can do and no one has to tell us what to do. »
In another daily interview The Parisian, NAK swore that if it was all a question of money, Kylian Mbappé would have left for Real Madrid, invoking the 170 million euros put on the table last summer by the Merengues to buy the world champion. “This money, they were ready to reinvest it this year when it was free! »
In addition to the sums invested, there is in the fight of Tebas the opposition between a legitimate capital, that of the “traditional” clubs, and another iniquitous, the unlimited state money of the PSG, which is seen among other things reproached for its agreements sponsorship with companies directly linked to Qatar.
Banks vs States
If there are things in these practices that Spanish football cannot afford, the converse is true. Example with Barça: last year, the club took out a loan of 595 million euros from Goldman Sachs, including a renegotiation of the club’s debt of 140 million euros and an interest rate of 1.98% over ten years. If he wished, PSG could not do the same. “The government body Tracfin, which fights against money laundering, requires that the money of such and such a potential investor pass through a French bank, explained economist Pierre Rondeau for RMC Sport in 2019. However, the latter have been reluctant since 2014 to grant loans to football clubs. »
Given the context, what can we learn from this complaint? First, its spectacular character. Juan Branco is riding on his high horse by relying on the Ministry of Sports in his quest to repeal Mbappé’s contract. “This detail made me tilt,” says sports law lawyer Gautier Kertudo. It does not exist in law, La Liga cannot make such a request, it is simply impossible. La Liga’s reasoning is to say that it is an administrative act – based on fairly recent case law which says that the approval of a contract is an administrative act – and that if the t an administrative act is contested, it is the minister who is competent. At least in his mind and in the shortcut he makes. »
The lawyer continues. “In reality, contesting an approval is a fairly classic matter in sports law: it certainly goes through the administrative courts, but it respects the classic scheme of first instance, appeal, Council of State, and absolutely not the minister’s office, which would have any legal capacity to be able to repeal a contract that had been approved. »
Impossible mission
If everyone agrees that Me Branco’s fight is commendable, there is doubt about some of the legal tools used and the procedure as a whole, giving the impression of a vast incoherent mix. Gautier Kertudo deciphers: “The approval of a contract is governed by the Sports Code, its challenge too, so it is not as simple as he seems to believe, or at least as he announces it. He speaks of revolutionizing the system, of an entry point. And there, he would have found his famous entry point with the approval of Mbappé’s contract. But that means almost nothing. The unfair competition procedure, he can very well do it without having an entry point like that of approval. He can directly attack the PSG investment in unfair competition with a particular procedure. It would be atypical and quite wacky, but why not. »
“There is a consistency all the same in what Branco says about PSG, which is capable of extending Mbappé, and therefore in fact, of paying him a signing bonus, while increasing his payroll, says Pierre Rondeau. . While according to DNCG reports, PSG have a net deficit of more than 220 million euros over the 2020-2021 season. There is a paradox between respecting financial fair play [FPF], who wants you to not be able to spend more than you earn, and the signings of Messi and Mbappé who come as the club shows a deficit at the DNCG. His misunderstanding is understandable. »
Apart from making knots in our brains, the process has little chance of succeeding. This is not the first time that the “new rich” have been attacked. The CAS agreed with Manchester City when UEFA wanted to sanction the club, the same for PSG. Penalties have always been light, with internal settlements. Not to mention NAK’s new dominant position in the ECA (European club association), the fruit of its fight against the Superleague, and the new version of the FPF tailor-made for PSG with an authorization for the payroll to exceed the 90% of budget.
In short, we do not see why this time it could work. This fight is perhaps nothing more than a vast play where two somewhat megalomaniac men share the beautiful role to serve their image. That of a boss who cannot be blamed for not having defended his football, and that of a lawyer turned to good causes. Not so opposed after all, Javier and Juan.