“We’re fooling ourselves” – La Liga chief Javier Tebas takes aim at Everton and Aston Villa

La Liga president Javier Tebas has taken aim at Everton and Aston Villa in his continued complaints about Premier League spending.

Mundo Deportivo cover comments from the La Liga supremo today. And it seems Everton and Aston Villa are in the firing line this time around.

Tebas regularly complains about the Premier League’s spending power in comparison to La Liga. It is a continued point of complaint for the Spanish chief, who believes English clubs are being allowed to do things unfairly.

That complaint has continued despite rules regarding spending being set to change this summer.

PSR abandoned

The Premier League is abandoning it’s old PSR model in favour of one more in line with UEFA’s. Under the current system, club’s cannot have losses of more than £105m over a three-year period.

That’s seen as outdated and will be replaced by rules that allow clubs to spend up to 85% of their revenue on transfers, salaries and agent fees.

The new rules will also block actions such as clubs selling assets like hotels and women’s teams to themselves to circumvent the financial rules.

Everton and Aston Villa have both used this in recent years. Everton sold Everton Women to Roundhouse Capital Holdings in July 2025 to create room for transfer spending. Aston Villa sold their women’s team to a parent holding company in a deal reportedly worth £55m in early 2025 as well.

Chelsea’s deal was even bigger, reportedly worth around £200m. This allowed them to turn a major loss into a pre-tax profit.

Everton and Aston Villa in firing line

They, though, seem to have dodged Tebas’ ire. Instead, he took aim at Everton and Aston Villa in his comments at a press conference in London.

“We are fooling ourselves,” he said.

“It is commendable that we seek Financial Fair Play rules. But English football has a turnover, excluding transfers, that is double that of the Spanish league and double that of the Bundesliga, which is next in line.

“With normal Financial Fair Play, it will always have double the investment capacity. We know that we cannot compete financially with the Premier League.

“We can sign better players, have better coaches, but we cannot compete. The Premier League alone, with normal Financial Fair Play, is enough to be number one by a wide margin.”