La Liga chief Javier Tebas renews feud with acting UEFA boss Angel Maria Villar
ByReuters
Updated 10/05/2016 at 20:03 GMT
La Liga president Javier Tebas has renewed his old feud with Angel Maria Villar, saying he hopes the Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) chief becomes head of UEFA because it will mean him leaving his current position.
Spanish football league La Liga president Javier Tebas speaks during the Sportel Asia conference in Singapore on March 16, 2016
Image credit: AFP
Villar has been acting president of European soccer's ruling body since Michel Platini was provisionally suspended in October.
He is now expected to run for election as UEFA's permanent leader after Platini resigned when his ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday.
Tebas has long been a critic of Villar, the RFEF's president since 1988, for his leadership of the organisation.
Their relationship was further strained last year when Villar supported a planned strike by players against a new law regulating the collective bargaining for the sale of television rights. Tebas lobbied for the new ruling.
"The president of the federation will have my total support to be president of UEFA. It could be very good if Angel Maria Villar would dedicate himself exclusively to Europe and someone else lead Spanish football," Tebas told reporters on Tuesday.
"Leading Spanish football and UEFA are very different things and Spanish football needs clear reform. If the current president and his companions leave then Spanish football will get the important change it needs to come out of the crisis engulfing it."
The pair also clashed in 2014 over how to solve the problem of violence in Spanish soccer, Tebas criticising Villar's decision to not attend a crisis meeting after a fan was killed before a game between Deportivo La Coruna and Atletico Madrid.
La Liga's president denied, however, that their relationship affected the workings of the two organisations, saying his gripes were confined to Villar and his vice-president Juan Padron.
"I speak with the executives and intermediaries constantly and we come to an agreement on many issues so there is no war between La Liga and the RFEF or between me and the RFEF," said Tebas.
"All we do is criticise the management of the president and his vice-president."
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