La Liga Salary Cap and that Porque

The Motin de Hesperia explains so much today

The season has started, at least in England, so we are back to regular blogging. Rejoice! Of course, I have been online too much, and everybody is talking about Barcelona. Every day, some new shady detail or claim seems to emerge. But one thing I found on my TL was especially curious: allegedly, Barca signed Dani Alves and only paid him 100,000 Euros all of last season - but his actual La Liga salary cap hit was much higher due to his years of playing, trophies won, and other factors.

Culers on the TL complained: if there is a signed, notarized and registered contract: why not go by that? Why do some weird calculations?

Barcelona is the reason why. And the Motin de Hesperia in 1988.

Here’s the deal: at a posh hotel in the Catalan capital, coach Luis Aragones and several players had called an impromptu press conference. A few journalists came to participate, but it was odd: why weren’t they at the Camp Nou? Or at other FC Barcelona installations?

The reason became evident: players admitted that they had signed two contracts with FC Barcelona. The first, above the table and declared to authorities, was the playing wages one. The second one, which was a bit murkier, had apparently not been as forthright with the Spanish tax man - Hacienda - as one would hope. It was allegedly an image rights deal.

The players were mad because Hacienda had gotten wind of the 2nd contracts and popped them all with hefty fines and back taxes owed. And while, of course, some claim the entire motin was actually manipulated by a shadow conspiracy to depose the then President of the club - the existence of the second or “shadow” contracts was never disputed.

And this is why La Liga has a salary cap hit based on a complex, perhaps convoluted formula which all teams must abide by. It is too easy to have 2ndary contracts - or even hire a player’s family member to hold bogus (or fluffy consulting) jobs - to get around salary cap rules. Without a formula, it’d be easy to hire a player for a song on paper, but then pay them with some third country image rights deal or pay a family member for being an academy janitor.

The La Liga salary cap formula is meant to create an incentive for clubs and players to actually report the salary paid and agreed in full.

In conclusion, Shakira: innocent. But Barcelona? Dirty dirty