La Liga CEO Francisco Roca believes Spanish clubs will agree to sell their TV rights collectively within the next three years as they "attempt to close the financial gap on the Premier League," according to Andy Hunter of the London GUARDIAN. Currently, only Spanish and Portuguese clubs sell their rights on an individual basis, "creating the disparity" that made Real Madrid more than €140M ($183M) from TV income and Granada around €12M ($15.8M). Deportivo La Coruña is the latest Spanish club "in financial turmoil," but Roca insists that "the will exists in Spain to redress the current imbalance." Roca: "We need to conquer the issue of individual television rights. It is not advantageous for the Spanish league to sell its rights individually, and something we aim to solve over the next two or three years is to sell them collectively." Roca also insisted that TV revenue "is not the major reason for financial crises in Spanish football." Roca: "We have a problem helping teams who are relegated. We don't have parachute payments like you do in the Premier League. If you get relegated in England, it is difficult. In Spain, it is catastrophic" (GUARDIAN, 4/11).
