Tebas highlights Real Madrid drought as he defends La Liga model and questions Premier League losses

Javier Tebas has used Real Madrid’s recent lack of silverware to defend La Liga’s financial model and to criticise both the club’s stance on league regulations and the Premier League’s mounting losses.

Speaking in Madrid at a reception for clubs newly promoted to Spain’s professional divisions for the 2026-27 season, the La Liga president drew a contrast between Spain’s regulatory framework and the financial profile of English football, while pointedly referencing Real Madrid’s current run without trophies.

According to Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo, Tebas argued that opposition to La Liga’s rules often coincides with poor results on the pitch, singling out Real Madrid as the most persistent critic.

“There are clubs that always question all our systems and financial rules, and representatives of Real Madrid have often come out to question them,” Tebas said. “But this criticism often appears because of the sporting circumstances the club is going through.”

He then underlined that Real Madrid have not lifted a trophy in the past two seasons, noting that the club “have been absent from the podium and have not won any title in the last two years”.

Defence of La Liga’s model

Tebas framed those remarks as part of a broader defence of La Liga’s approach to financial control, which he presented as a more sustainable alternative to the Premier League’s model.

He argued that Spain’s top flight should not seek to mirror English football if that means accepting heavy financial losses, and he backed up his claim by citing figures he said illustrated the scale of the Premier League’s deficits.

“In the last year the Premier League recorded losses of £1bn, and in the year before that, similar losses,” he said. “Altogether, in recent years the losses have reached £10bn.”

“If this is the football model we are looking for… the sustainability of institutions and securing their future comes above everything,” he added, insisting that La Liga’s financial rules were designed to protect clubs over the long term rather than chase short-term sporting success at any cost.

Leicester City used as warning

To illustrate his argument, Tebas pointed to the trajectory of Leicester City, who won the Premier League title in 2015-16 but are currently outside the top two tiers of English football.

“No one now mentions where Leicester City, who were league champions, ended up and how they are now in the third division,” he said, using the club as an example of what he views as the risks of an unstable financial environment.

Tebas has long positioned La Liga’s spending controls and salary limits as a necessary safeguard against the kind of boom-and-bust cycles that he believes can undermine clubs’ futures. His latest comments came as he sought to reassure Spain’s newly promoted sides that the domestic system is built on what he called a more responsible financial footing.

Criticism of English oversight

The La Liga president also contrasted Spain’s self-regulation with what he described as external intervention in England, pointing to the move by the UK government to introduce an independent regulator for English football.

“They do not take the sustainability of the clubs into account, and that is why the British government intervened to manage the Premier League through an independent regulatory body,” Tebas said.

“Here in Spain, we manage our financial affairs ourselves through the clubs,” he continued. “They would certainly not have taken that step [in England] unless there was an obvious problem.”

Tebas’s comments are the latest salvo in a long-running debate over how Europe’s major leagues should be governed, with the La Liga chief again positioning Spain’s model as more fiscally prudent – and using Real Madrid’s current trophy drought as a backdrop to his argument.