The restructuring plans and the spanish football clubs conversion into PLCs (1982-1992)

Abstract

Among the Sport’s commodification process that has taken place in the last decades, Spanish football suffered a critical transformation in the eighties decade and the first nineties, along with other European countries: footballers became workers, the Spanish professional league was created (LFP) and television income increased exponentially thanks to new private and public televisions. Probably the most important change was the transformation of football clubs into PLC trough the Spanish 1990 Sport Law. This change was the result of a process of confrontation and negotiation between the different players, such as clubs, Federation, League and the government. The clubs, which were close to bankruptcy due to their accumulated debts, first succeeded in receiving more money from the public football lottery, the Quinielas, in return of increased economic control. This first restructuring plan failed, forcing the government to implement a mandatory transformation into PLC for the clubs in exchange of more money. The clubs tried to resist this process, but were too dependent on future public money. This critical moment in Spanish Sport history belongs to the Spanish Sport system and must therefore be explained.