La Liga president Javier Tebas has continued his campaign against Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City’s transfer spending by accusing the European giants of “financial doping”.
Tebas, speaking at the Soccerex convention in Manchester, hit out at the two clubs again just days after urging Uefa to investigate City over claims that the club breached financial fair play rules.
PSG broke the world transfer record last month by signing Neymar from Barcelona for £198m, while City’s summer transfer outlays exceeded £220m.
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Sky Sports reports that Tebas has accused the clubs of having an “unfair advantage” since both are state-owned - City by Abu Dhabi and PSG by Qatar.
Tebas said: “This is when football clubs have a competitive advantage due to income not coming from the clubs themselves.
“Recently, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, before that Chelsea, they have money that has not been created [by them] and have been able to get an advantage through this.
“Manchester City with all this oil [money] will take all these players and we need to protect ourselves. These past few years Manchester City have paid out nearly a thousand million on players, PSG £950m."
“We have seen the accounts of these clubs for the past five years, seeing income from gate tickets, TV rights and commercial income. This is publicly available data. We have the comparison with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United.
“We know these clubs fight to become the best brand in world. We carried out this study of the accounts - income streams, sponsorship, etc, etc. PSG has a lot more from sponsorship than Manchester United. That’s impossible. That’s financial doping.
“It is not like I don’t like PSG. If this player [Neymar] had gone to Manchester United, maybe I would not have gone to the courts because this is not financial doping and maybe they have the money to buy this player.”
In a parting shot at PSG, Tebas said he wouldn't rule out the possiblility of the French giants buying the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi.
“If Nasser [Al-Khelaifi, PSG president] wants them, they can just open the pipes and afford them,” said Tebas.
“This is the gas price, not the football price. The Qatari tourist board pay this much [for sponsorship], another pays this much. It is very easy to do this. It is not complex.
“They are laughing at the industry, aren’t they? We have caught them peeing in the swimming pool. Now Neymar has gone on the diving board and peed from the diving board. This is not acceptable.”
