Spanish Football in Crisis (and nobody in power cares)

This week has seen two sides in the third tier (Segunda B) go broke (Poli Ejido and Sporting Mahonés). This doesn't seem to trouble the football authorities in the least, as they were too busy chuffing cigars and scoffing canapés at the Bernabeu yesterday to notice. I would add that minimum 50% of segunda B clubs are in a very sick state indeed. The other 50% are worse still.

As Real Murcia were in that division last season, we did have an all-too-close look at why. Little or no TV except local stations. Little or no sponsorship for hoardings or shirts. Little support from fans.

When you see on Sky in the UK with their league review program, where you can view all the goals from the third and fourth levels of the league and learn something about a particular club or player, you can see why their clubs have a minimum chance of survival. The coverage attracts sponsors to national TV audience, hence all sides have a shirt sponsor, hoardings seem to be full, and even Coca-cola have coughed up money to sponsor the divisions themselves. All of this contributing to helping the lesser teams stay afloat.

Surely in Spain there would be some interest in an hour long show focused on the division? Wouldn't it help to encourage sponsorship and create much needed revenue? Ultimately the answer has to be no. Football here is viewed as entertainment, as art. The overkill on Madrid and Barcelona's great play only serves to exaggerate lower league players failures or restrictions. And in Spain that means ridicule. And the thought of ridicule drives fans away.

There is little chance of a turnaround. Consider this....the two giants snowball keeps growing, each taking 140 million euros of the TV pie. Third place? Just over 40 million. The riches, both monetary and therefore talent-wise, don't get shared. The bottom club gets just 12 million, a massive 128 million gap between first and last. In the Premier league the same gap is just 24 million.

The crisis isn't just because second, third and fouth tier sides are going out of business. It's that only 2 sides have any chance of winning league or cup.