La Liga needs more teams to challenge Real Madrid, Barcelona, says Frederic Kanoute
Frederic Kanoute footballer points out the reason behind the Real-Barca hegemony in La Liga is the financial muscle of both these teams.
Real Madrid and Barcelona are arguably the biggest football clubs in the world. But La Liga ambassador Frederic Kanoute believes that the La Liga would be more interesting to watch if more teams could match up to the level of Barcelona and Real Madrid.
“I think the fact that either Barca or Real will win the title each season affects the popularity of the league. The financial aspect is one thing. If La Liga wants to bring more awareness, they will have to make a more competitive league. It’s already started, with Atletico winning a few seasons back. If it happens more regularly, it will be in La Liga’s interest,” said Kanoute, who was in Mumbai for the El Clasico screening at Khar Gymkhana on Saturday.
The striker spent seven seasons with La Liga outfit Sevilla between 2005 and 2012.
“I love the El Clasico because this is a match between two of the best teams in the world. But I would like the other teams to take over in terms of results. La Liga would be even more interesting if there was more competition until the end of the season between Madrid, Barcelona and other teams,”
The Malian footballer points out the reason behind the Real-Barca hegemony in La Liga is the financial muscle of both these teams.
“Finance is an important factor. That’s why in England you have a little more competition right now because any team can afford to buy almost any player in the world. This is not true in Spain. They have to adjust a few things financially, I think some are already doing it, to have more fairness financially and that would bring more competition,” Kanoute added.
The striker said that the league needed to step in to ensure the clubs like Sevilla got wider fan bases overseas.
“You have many interesting clubs in Spain, so if we could help them a little more, it’s going to be more interesting. Not financially, but in terms of marketing and TV coverage. There are other interesting games apart from El Clasico, which we need to show. This could help things to improve,” he said before adding that clubs too need to make more visits to countries like India and China to widen their fan base.