“We tried to lift the bans”: Spahn’s blunt verdict | OneFootball

The president of Unión visited the LT10 studios and, in an interview with the program “Que quede claro,” laid out a thorough overview of the complex economic situation facing local and continental football. During the interview, the executive detailed the serious difficulties the club faces in collecting outstanding debts, offered a mea culpa regarding internal management, and analyzed the role of the “Tatengue” in the decisions of the Argentine Football Association (AFA).

The economic bubble and uncollectible debts

Spahn warned about the current financial state of institutions in the region: “I think we are in a bubble in football; that contagion from those who do things badly is pandemic. Today in Argentina and Brazil, clubs are economically strained. We made efforts to lift the transfer bans, but we haven’t been able to collect debts; if we had been paid, we would have done it.”

In that regard, he gave an example of the obstacles to unlocking money owed to Unión: “Talleres, for example, which is a club that usually pays, didn’t do so. They offered to pay me with a check from Argentinos Juniors, but I looked into it and Argentinos has significant debt and bounced checks; the banks wouldn’t buy it. Waiting to cash it would have been suicide.”

The red-and-white president extended his concern to the international market, where guarantees are increasingly scarce: “The fact that in Brazil only Flamengo, Palmeiras, Bragantino, and Paranaense remain as trustworthy clubs says a lot about this situation. They told me about a bank in Germany to buy Racing de Santander’s debt. No one buys debts from Ukraine because of the war; from Brazil they simply don’t do it either, except for those four teams.” He also drew a clear distinction between late payment and other kinds of behavior: “It’s understandable that a club may not be able to pay an installment; that’s something you can talk through. But then we get to the case of Racing Club, which sold the transfer and kept the money—we’re talking about fraud.”

Self-criticism and the impact of television

When assessing Unión’s current situation, the president took responsibility for the sporting policies implemented in recent times: “We’re in a financial situation; we’re not going to be the kings of the bubble, but we’re going to get through it. We’re not going to sign players; we made a mistake. I take it personally, my opinion carried weight on the board of directors. We went from having no players to sell to being suppliers. The arrival of Leonardo Madelón stirred everyone’s emotions in a major way. I’m staying, but we have to go for something more; with little we qualified for cups, you have to be hungry, you’re always the same, Luis, without spending.”

Spahn also recalled how contract inflation soared alongside audiovisual rights more than a decade ago: “We had a very good year in 2009; we were receiving 230,000 from television rights. With Fútbol para Todos, that went up to 620,000, and we had a year of prosperity. After that, the stakeholders took note; everything was revalued, coaches asked for triple, players too.”

Political power in the AFA and Tapia’s leadership

Regarding the institution’s position toward Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia’s leadership, Spahn distanced himself from opposition figures and from those seeking political prominence: “Fassi was an opponent and had to apologize. The clubs make up the AFA; we are not politicized, we go to the AFA to protect Unión’s resources, not to build a career. There are clubs that want to be around the national teams, travel, be next to Messi. There is one club I don’t think very highly of, whose president, over the last four years, would run to be next to Messi. We are not looking for privileges for Unión.”

Finally, when asked whether the weight of the member clubs is greater than that of the president of Argentine football’s governing body himself, he concluded bluntly:

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.