SIGA Sport Integrity Week 2022 live, summary of LaLiga president Javier Tebas speech

SIGA Sport Integrity Live

This is a live stream from the main auditorium at SIGA Sport Integrity Week. Check out the full programme and the SIGA website. 

And that's the end of Javier Tebas' intervention at SIGA Sport Integrity Week. Once again he railed about the injection of funds into state-owned clubs such as PSG and Manchester City, and argued for UEFA to do more. He also pointedly noted the conflicts of interest in the game, particularly in the case of PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who holds a number of other posts in the game. 

Asked about what he hopes for the next three years, Tebas, who has been in place for 10 years now, says, that this season is a transition season, and there is a plan in place for a stimulus for clubs to bring investment forward. 

The other thing that is top of mind for Tebas is the audiovisual disruption taking place in the sports market. He says the change to Over The Top, OTT, services, is changing the face of the industry and LaLiga needs to be completely on top of this. 

Tebas says that these days the risks coming from foreign capital are far lower these days -in LaLiga and sports industry, it’s hard for money laundered funds to enter because source of funds regulations in place mean it is harder for, say, drug money to come in, although it is vital to remain vigilant. 

Q: PSG fined 65 million euros, along with other clubs, does that not show FFP is working? 

"65 million euros for PSG is like us going for lunch in Lisbon," laughs Tebas. It's not actually dissuading clubs from breaking the rules. Says clubs need to be banned from European Competition, that's what would hurt. 

Tebas says the new Financial Fair Play rules, by changing to the concept of sustainability are "on the right track"

Tebas says the UEFA model for 2024 is only just coming close to the model Spain already has. 

Tebas says having one person in various roles, such as Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who is president of PSG as well as the European Club Association and the FIFA World Club Cup organising committee is not good management. Too many conflicts of interest. 

Tebas says the current situation cannot carry on in football. 

Tebas talking about how the pandemic brought losses of a billion euros to football, which need to be recovered. "The only way to do it is to bring in profits, or capital contributions, which are not allowed to be done in Spain. These are not allowed because these contaminate the sector."

Tebas explains that when Barcelona had losses they had to sell 700 million in assets to cover these and then they can then work normally in the market. However, teams like PSG or City have been covered by multi-millionaires and that’s not the right way to do things. "It worries me greatly."

Final area Tebas wants to cover is technology and the need to bring in technology to help the industry. An example is Tyche 3.0 which can, he says, monitor all betting to analyse illegal patterns. 

LaLiga has developed anti-piracy software to stop the theft of the product that LaLiga has created. Says they are now making that tech available to film and book industries. 

Tebas demanding that UEFA act to protect the industry. "We can't bring in money from outside the industry to cover alarming losses." He says the future of football has to be sustainable. 

Tebas saying we need to get back to sustainability in football, and that clubs such as PSG, or Chelsea, previously, should not be able to act as they have. 

Now onto one of Tebas' main bugbears, which is the injection of money from states into football, distorting the competition. 

Uses the example of LIV golf, which he says distorts the "ordinary" competition. 

The president of LaLiga talking about the need to fight piracy, and the theft of the product. When people watch football that has been pirated, he says it undermines the competition, and takes away resources, including from all the people who work in the industry, 

Next area: to fight to stamp out all violence in football. 

Tebas says the threat of match-fixing is constant the football needs to be constantly vigilant and implacable in rooting it out. 

Tebas wants to highlight a number of areas within the broad scope of Integrity that he considers vital. 

Firstly, integrity of competition, and avoiding match-fixing. 

Javier Tebas is now speaking at the SIGA Integrity Week conference, saying he is proud to follow the values of the organisation and fight for the values of football. 

"There are ever more problems and we need to identify the people who want to destroy the values of football."

It will be interesting to see on what subjects Tebas holds forth: the president of the LFP is not generally one to mince his words and it's an interesting time for Spanish football with Real Madrid's dominance, Barcelona's summer spending spree on the back of Joan Laporta's economic "levers" and a general decline across the board beyond the two traditional heavyweights, not to mention an ongoing tug-of-war over television rights and a referee's strike in the newly fully professional Spanish women's league.  

On Tuesday 13 September, LaLiga chief Javier Tebas is due to speak at the event, at 3pm local time (4pm CEST). You can follow the discourse of the head of Spanish football's governing body via the video link at the top of the page.  

SIGA's Sports Integrity Week 2022 is being held in Cascais, Portugal, the five-day event aimed at promoting the implementation of the highest integrity standards at all levels and across all areas of Sport.

Bringing together relevant industry leaders, decision-makers and top experts, the Sport Integrity Week offers a unique, powerful platform to raise awareness about the most critical challenges facing Sport and the wider industry, facilitate collective action and pave the way to the necessary reforms.