COLUMN: Javier Tebas, Vinicius Junior and the pirates – A La Liga mess you wouldn’t see in the Premier League

In any given week, a number of events occur to which all I can respond is, “You're kidding me.” For example, at the end of last week, LaLiga president Javier Tebas called out Vinicius Junior, one of the biggest stars in world football and a key player in his league, for doing something that many people who love this sport have done and will most likely continue to do doing.

Vinicius, out with a hamstring injury, was unavailable for Real Madrid on Wednesday when Los Blancos visited Liverpool in the Champions League; the holders slumped to a 2-0 defeat which led to heavy criticism of Kylian Mbappe, who was expected to feature in the side in Vinicius' absence. But even while injured, Vinicius remained a magnet for controversy when he uploaded a still image from the broadcast… with a TNT Sports logo in the top right corner.

It appears Vinicius was watching the Brazilian feed of Liverpool-Real Madrid while in Spain – a big 'no-no' for Tebas, who insisted that if anyone watches football in Spain, they should do so using Movistar+, the telecommunications giant that owns the broadcast rights for LaLiga and the Champions League.

Never mind that Vinicius may have legally watched the match through his Brazilian HBO Max account. The naming of one of the league's best players is the latest escalation in Tebas' personal battle against football piracy, which he claims has cost LaLiga more than €600 million. per season. What Tebas doesn't talk about is why fans and even players might be tempted to watch football on 'illegal' or 'illicit' streams.

On Saturday, Las Palmas won away at leader Barcelona for the first time in 50 years. And I bet many people in Spain who watched the 2-1 win for Diego Martinez's men did so via an illegal feed, as the price of football spirals out of control and the growth of LaLiga in other areas harms.

Fans are motivated to watch illegal streams because the cost of Movistar's football package is more than €100 per month. Fans can watch the Bundesliga, Ligue 1, the Premier League and the Portuguese Liga NOS for less – sometimes much less – than LaLiga. It's absolutely wild that piracy has become a pet issue for Tebas, when this (below) is the breakdown of what it costs to watch the major European leagues domestically:

Inextricably linked to Tebas' war on piracy is LaLiga's social media presence, which inherently encourages fans to cash in on the league's product. Most readers of Football España are aware that LaLiga is going against the grain of the other major football leagues in Europe by exercising (or at least attempting to exercise) total control over the distribution of its content, such as highlights and packages. Goals are rarely cut, edited and pushed on Twitter/X, Instagram, etc. during an ongoing match; Normally LaLiga clips a player's celebration before uploading a three-minute package to YouTube after the match, and during the week it allows the league's social media team to capture the goals themselves, days after interest in the game has subsided. has reached its peak.

Imagine if LaLiga ever tweeted this, for example:

If this sounds like LaLiga is scoring a big own goal by taking these measures, you're absolutely right. Between the intense scrutiny over his intellectual property, the refusal to commit €3 million to introducing much-needed goal-line technology, and racist abuse and fan violence in multiple areas, Tebas is fighting the wrong battle: he is the gateway to a league that has recruited global superstars Mbappe and Julian Alvarez, who, along with Lamine Yamal, usher in a new generation of stars playing in Spain.

It's one of the most annoying things about following Tebas' league because sometimes it feels more his than yours, while the main voice at LaLiga really has to worry about the way fans of the league see Antoine Griezmann score his goal . brilliant goal for Atletico Madrid against Valladolid on Saturday evening, or Oihan Sancet's winning double at Rayo Vallecano, or Ladislav Krejci's 97th-minute equalizer at Villarreal blows the race for fourth place wide open. For the first time in years, there is a chance of a three-way title fight at the top of the league, and just four points separate the teams in fourth through eighth place as of December. Does the competition really not care about its product?

As a LaLiga fan and writer from the United States, there was once a time when it was extremely difficult to watch Primera week in and week out; that's become easier since ESPN acquired the U.S. rights to the league and put all 380 games on ESPN+. Granted, these games are behind a $12 (€11.42) per month paywall, and streaming Champions League matches requires a $10 (€9.51) monthly subscription to Paramount+. But it says a lot that the Spanish game is more affordable in a country where almost everything else is too expensive amid rising inflation, and where an incoming presidential administration has promised to make commodities even more expensive.

We need to get people excited about watching LaLiga outside the big two (or big three), but how can we do that when the league is touting Movistar's expensive package as the 'only way' to watch the game domestically? And abroad: is the administrative effort involved in organizing a Barcelona-Atletico Madrid match in Miami worth it? How can we imagine such an undertaking when the league is struggling to keep its own home?