Spanish Footballers' Association (AFE) President Luis Rubiales addressed the "current situation in Spanish football," according to Torres & Moñino of EL PAIS. It has "never been more difficult to be a professional footballer" in the Spanish Football League (LFP) and it is Rubiales' responsibility to "defend players' rights during such times." He discussed the various issues players face in a Q&A. Below is an excerpt:
Q: To what do you attribute the new wave of precariousness?
Luis Rubiales: Measures have been to applied to footballers that, within the prevailing logic of a Spanish society in crisis, make sense in other sectors, but not in football, which is not a sector in crisis because each year the revenue generated increases by 8%, 10% or 12%.
Q: You do not believe there is a crisis in football?
Rubiales: The crisis is the management. They have had three or four plans for regulation. The latest at the expense of the footballer. The LFP wants to eliminate errors focusing only on salaries, which represent just 25-30% of the total amount of money that moves. We want economic control. Inflexible if necessary, but with all agents participating, players included.
Q: But society sees footballers as privileged.
Rubiales: Football passed in the last 10 years from €1 billion ($1.24B) in revenue to around €2 billion ($2.49B). If every year there is more money, the problem is not economic. On the other hand, salaries have dropped from €700 million ($871M) to €600 million ($746M) to €540 million ($670M). More than 90% of the footballers are workers with salaries comparable to other fields.
Q: Are the owed payments increasing?
Rubiales: La Liga says that there is now less debt. But what is different are the creditors. The LFP is beginning to pay the Spanish tax authorities and Social Security, but at the expense of other creditors, including the players (EL PAIS, 11/23).
