Barcelona players celebrate at the Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan. Photograph: Denis Doyle/Getty Images
The debate over which league has the better players is sure to continue but off the pitch La Liga is also competing with the Premier League for the unwanted accolade of most indebted top flight.
Less than 24 hours after a Guardian investigation revealed that Premier League clubs were carrying combined debts of £2.9bn, a Spanish academic study put the figure among all 20 La Liga clubs at €3.53bn (£3.03bn).
Debt among Spanish clubs had risen marginally in accounts for the 2008-09 season from the previous year's figure of €3.49bn, according to research by the University of Barcelona professor José María Gay. Of the 20 La Liga clubs, only the two huge teams that dominate income and exposure – Real Madrid and Barcelona – and the relegated minnows Numancia made an operating profit.
Labour costs, largely accounted for by player wages, made up 85% of total operating income. At several clubs – including Sevilla, Atlético Madrid and Valencia – outgoings on wages were significantly higher than their operating income.
Unlike the Premier League, where a collective television deal means that broadcasting income is divided equally between all 20 clubs and weighted according to the number of appearances and final league position, Spanish clubs conduct their own negotiations. That has led to an unbalanced situation where Real Madrid and Barcelona were able to bring in half of their ¤560m income from media rights.
With rival clubs clamouring for a Premier League-style collective deal but the big two resisting for fear of damaging their competitiveness in the Champions League, Gay suggested that the status quo would have to change or the Spanish game would be left in its "death throes".
"Barça and Madrid will have to make an effort, sacrificing today so the league can flourish," Gay said. "One step back, several forward. If this does not happen, the league will be in its death throes."
This season Barcelona beat Real Madrid to the La Liga title by three points, with Valencia finishing a distant third, 28 points behind the champions. "Who can win the league? The answer is obvious: Barça or Madrid. Madrid or Barça," added Gay. "Nobody else. Maybe now is the right time to renegotiate the rules of the economic game between all the protagonists."
Gay said that the current model was unsustainable. "Let's not kid ourselves, Spanish football is in a very difficult situation, like our economy," he wrote. "You can't spend more than you earn. This is the fundamental rule for economic survival."
The economic woes of the Spanish game were highlighted yesterday when Real Mallorca, who only narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Champions League on the final day of the season, said they would file for voluntary administration within the next few days. The club has been labouring under debts of ¤85m and has failed in its attempts to find a buyer.
Real Mallorca have been up for sale since the former president Vicenç Grande's property company filed for insolvency in 2008. Mateu Alemany, the managing director and majority shareholder, said the move would "open up positive opportunities" and was "a solution not a problem". He added: "There will be a philosophy of austerity. The insolvency will affect the entire first-team squad...and those who earn the most."