Study shows La Liga financial imbalance

A report published on Saturday by the Spanish Central Sports Committee (CSC) shows that Real Madrid and Football Club Barcelona spend more money on their respective squads than other 18 club in the BBVA Primera Liga put together.

With respect to Atletico Madrid, who won the Spanish league title two years ago and who are currently second in the league table, Real and Barca are habitually the two most powerful clubs in Spain destined to battle for the BBVA Primera Liga title every year.

The clubs still receive the majority of the money paid to Spain' s clubs for television rights and that tips the balance of the league clearly in their favor.

The CSD report shows that for the current season, Real Madrid are able to spend a total of 431.1 million euros (around 460 million US dollars) on their squad, while Barca have a limit of 421.7 million euros.

That adds up to 852.8 million euros between the two, when the total spending for the 20 clubs in the Spanish top flight reaches 1,516,379 million euros, meaning that the remaining 18 clubs spend 'just' 720,196 million euros between them - 132 million euros less than the big two.

If the report shows anything, it is how well Atletico Madrid have done to compete with Madrid and Barca in recent seasons, given that the side coached by Diego Simeone has a salary limit of 159.6 million euros, just over a third of the amount their main rivals are able to pay.

However, if Atletico have problems competing with Madrid and Barca, the majority of the clubs in Spain have a virtually impossible task: Sporting Gijon have a total wage bill of 14.6 million euros around 3 percent of that Real Madrid are able to spend, while Deportivo la Coruna, who lost 8-0 at home to Barca during the week have a salary limit of 17.8 million euros, around 4 percent of Barcelona' s budget.

Meanwhile Villarreal, who are currently fourth place in the BBVA Primera Liga table, have a budget of 61.5 million euros and fifth place Athletic Club Bilbao can spend a total of 53.6 million on their squad, over 8 times less than the big-two, meaning that for the foreseeable future we are unlikely to see any major surprises in La Liga.