LaLiga at a disadvantage to other leagues

Quite a few people have been asking me about the general feeling of apathy in this summer’s transfer window. Apart from Joan Laporta’s brazen spending at Barça (which hasn’t passed without suspicion), there hasn’t been a great deal of movement. Fans associate the summer with new signings. When I took the editor’s post at AS, I discovered to my surprise that the newspaper sales figures during July and August were double of those during the season - even though there was no football. Granted, that was the era of the galácticos and the daily rumours about Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham… But it wasn’t just about Real Madrid. Apart from those transfers, the rest of the clubs were also reinforcing their squads with mouthwatering signings. Those were happy summers. This one, however, feels as though it’s dragging on and has been short on new signings.

There is one very good reason for that - the disappearance of the Beckham Law, which offered huge fiscal benefits to foreign players. That’s no longer the case here in Spain, but neighbouring leagues still offer attractive tax breaks to new arrivals from abroad. In Italy, foreign players pay income tax at 30% at the top end of the scale,or 10% at the bottom; in France, players can get a 30% reduction; in England, all income from publicity earned outside of the country is free from tax. In Spain, players pay an average of 48% in tax, which includes any income gained from beyond the country’s borders, where many of them earn a large chunk of their earnings from commercial activities and deals in all five continents.

And on top of that, here, agents’ fees are considered taxable income for the player, and therefore must be declared as such. Also, if an Argentinean or Brazilian club sells a player to a Spanish club, they have to pay 19% of any profits made to the taxman, which means they would prefer to sell to someone else - unless the Spanish buyer agrees to pay that part of the deal. The objective of this article is not to suggest that taxes in football should be lowered, that is not the case at all. There is a lack of money for more worthy needs, so don’t take this as a complaint, just as an explanation as to what the transfer market is not what it was. Spanish football is now competing at a disadvantage.