6 points currently separate 11th place and 19th place. Such a crazy tight “other league” this year, with the exception of Sociedad who seem to still want to have a shot at Top 2, and seem almost certain to secure UCL slot.
Crazy to think that more than halfway into the season and the 19th placed team is still only 13 points away from the 5th placed team. Seems unlikely, but how crazy that Getafe still has any chance at Europa League while sitting in 19th.
And consider this your weekly reminder that we’re still only 3 points above 19th place and only 2 points above relegation. The feelings of team play are improving but our standing is still pretty fragile.
By my reckoning we should have seen the return to training of both Tecatito and Marcáo by now.
Tecatito did have a follow up surgery but that could only have been clearing the excess growth of bone tissue around the injury. With Marcáo it was a complicated injury but not a complicated surgery. Get a move on guys.
Barca have been very naughty and it’s been revealed they paid referee’s consultancy for ‘information’ for years, 33 payments in total, amounting to over €1m. The payments, allegedly. went to a former vice President of the refs committee, the information is hazy so far and Barcelona say it’s perfectly legal to pay for information on how referees think and interpret the game.
This has all come to light due to a discrepency in the accounts of the consultancy.
For Barca it is worth it…they will probably get a smack on the wrist and have to pay a small fine. Nothing compared to the money they earned from titles they earned. They won two titles in this timeframe. A measly 1.4 million in bribes, I mean consultant fees, was well spent. This is this years prize money breakdown.
Pos
Team
Prize Money
1
Real Madrid
€158 million
2
Atletico Madrid
€154 million
3
Barcelona
€115 million
4
Sevilla
€85 million
5
Real Sociedad
€80 million
6
Real :poop:
€77 million
7
Villarreal
€73 million
8
Celta Vigo
€73 million
9
Athletic Bilbao
€66 million
10
Granada
€65 million
11
Osasuna
€63 million
12
Cádiz
€60 million
13
Valencia
€57 million
14
Levante
€55 million
15
Alavés
€54 million
16
Getafe
€52.5 million
17
Elche
€52.5 million
18
Huesca
€50 million
19
Valladolid
€50 million
20
Eibar
€48.5 million
Those years they won, they earned a greater share of the prize money. If it changed their position just a few spots, we are talking 100ish million. 1st vs 4th is quite different. Plus you add in their sales of tshirts and swag, plus the increased visibility from being one of the best teams. Remember when they sold off some of their TV rights this past year because of financial levers? Complete corruption.
I have little faith much of anything will come of this. It really should…Barca have been laughing in the faces of everyone else and get away with whatever they want. Now let’s look at the crap Real Madrid are pulling. They are probably doing similar. The leadership of La Liga are as corrupt as they come. It is all set up to prop up RM/Barca to keep the “prestige” of the league up.
The press are now saying it was €7m paid to the ‘consultant’ while he was still vice president of the referees. This, if punished correctly would mean that Sevilla receive 4 cups that Barcelona won, 2 Supercopas and 2 CDR’s leading up to year 2018. I don’t ever want to win a cup in this way, just relegate the bastards.
Yup. I remember when Inter were awarded the 2005/06 Serie A when Juventus were relegated it felt cheap. Randomly though the Italian FA decided to just null and void the title for 2004/05.
Has anyone seen anything that lays this situation out clearly. My initial reading was “every club should be doing this, but either they are covering it better or simply too poor to afford the Cadillac package”. Everyone seems to be assuming the corruption route, and I get it, but it’s not clear to me that there’s really nay evidence of that so far. I guess the main thing is whether this guy was allowed to be contracting services out given his position, and whether there is sufficient backing that this was a legitimate consultant services agreement or whether there is evidence that some of the money may have been funneled to referees themselves.
With the Barcelona situation, if a club does something that warrants losing trophies, I think the teams that would have won them should be awarded a portion of the money the team that cheated got from winning that year. In this case, that would mean Barcelona would be fined x amount of money, giving it to Sevilla, etc
Imagine if a Sevilla player said this. They would be banned for life. Remember last season against espanyol Delaney was sent off for telling the ref “muy bien”. The double standards are crazy
Now there’s talk about banning Vinicius for a couple/few games but it’s definitely not the same as giving him a red card in the 34th min when the insult happened. It could’ve changed the game in Osasuna’s favor so they were totally robbed by the corrupt RFEF.
You’re right on both points, there’s a lot more to come out but it’s still foggy. All top clubs buy data and info but this has somehow piqued FIFA. I still haven’t seen the smoking gun and yet many presidents are convinced it’s a relegation crime so I’m just hoping it happens.
