Liga split on reducing its ranks

Barcelona president Sandro Rosell has not been a reticent man since he took over the Liga giant and on Monday, at the International Football Arena conference in Switzerland, he revisited an idea that has been doing the rounds in Spain for some time; reducing the top division from 20 teams to 16. Rosell cited the health of the players as the primary impetus and there is no doubt many coaches would welcome a less-congested fixture list - especially those whose sides compete regularly in Europe.

"My opinion is that our league has too many clubs," Rosell said in Zurich. "We have 20 and we should go down to 18, then to 16. This will mean that all the clubs will be more competitive and we can reduce players' salaries."

In a curious removal from the status quo, Rosell also said that television revenue should be distributed more evenly "within the next three or four or five years."

Under the current system, both Barça and Real Madrid scoop up around half of the roughly 650 million-euro pot between them. "None of the clubs in Spain are in a good position; we owe a lot of money to the banks. At Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic, Osasuna, the situation is not good but it is under control. As for the other 16 teams, some are in a very bad position and I don't think they will come back; maybe next year they will go to the second or third division or disappear entirely," said Rosell.

The Barça president's proposal - which his coach, Pep Guardiola, said had been a topic of discussion "from the era of [Johan] Cruyff" - has precedents: between 1971-72 and 1986-87 La Liga had 18 teams, and from 1950 to 1971 just 16 teams comprised the top division. What Rosell did not define was how the league would be thus reduced - whether through a simple definitive relegation of four teams based on one season or using the rather complicated Argentinean model of basing relegation on an averaging system of results over three seasons. In any case, Barcelona and Real Madrid will be quite safe.

"It wouldn't be bad, but the way the business is, there wouldn't be many spare weeks. They'd put friendlies in there," noted Guardiola, whose side must travel to Japan for the much-maligned Fifa Club World Cup next month.

Real Madrid, however, did not greet Rosell's proposal with open arms. "We are quite happy with a league of 20 teams," an official spokesman said. "Having four fewer teams would mean eight fewer matches per season and that represents 20 percent of revenues for each club."

Sevilla president José María del Nido, who has long led a campaign for fairer distribution of television money, said he had spoken to Rosell before the game between the two clubs on October 22 and broadly agrees with the philosophy, if not the number: Del Nido would prefer an 18-team league and a complete overhaul of its structure to "convert it into a true controlling body for soccer and to avoid the ruin of clubs."

Neither the Professional Football League (LFP) nor a majority of clubs commented on Rosell's speech. Racing Santander and Real Betis, however, did not find it particularly warming: "I think more than a proposal it's a smokescreen that maybe Barça needs or thinks it needs," said Francisco Pernía, acting president of Racing. "From an academic point of view anything can be considered but it must be taken to the LFP, which is the forum where it should be debated."

José Antonio Bosch, a Betis board member, added: "We don't see the urgency of this debate. We also don't understand why they are talking about 16 teams instead of 18. We ask ourselves whether a league of 16 teams would be more competitive if the vast differences in what clubs receive from television revenues still exist. What we should do is create a competition in which all of the participants have the chance to do exactly that, to compete."