BARCELONA, Reuters – Barcelona and Real Madrid warned of new legal action if the top national soccer league’s plan to receive a cash injection by private equity fund CVC moves forward. They claimed that it was illegal and excessively expensive.

Spain’s top two soccer teams, along with Athletic Bilbao were all owned by their members. LaLiga accused LaLiga of overstepping its legal authority and coercively acting.

They stated in an open letter that “The clubs are sovereign LaLiga members, and not prisoners of its managers.”

They stated that “all these issues are so grave that they force the clubs to take legal steps to defend their legitimate interests.” After listing several elements of the CVC agreement, including those relating to audiovisual rights, the club members declared them illegal.

Three clubs filed legal proceedings in September against LaLiga’s CVC contract.

Final approval is expected to be given on Dec. 10, and the agreement has already been supported by 38 of 42 LaLiga clubs in a round of voting. In exchange for an initial payment of $2.7 billion, the fund will receive 11% TV rights of the league over the next 50-years.

Bilbao, Real Madrid, and Barcelona have rejected the agreement and presented an alternative proposal that would see JPMorgan, Bank of America, and HSBC lend 2 Billion euros to each other in return for a fixed annual payment of 115 M euros over 25 years. This document was seen by Reuters last Wednesday.

They claim their proposal will cost Spanish clubs approximately 900 million Euros and that clubs would keep control over their audiovisual rights. The CVC deal, according to them, would cost 13.1 billion Euros.

Javier Tebas of LaLiga strongly condemned the alternative suggestion.

($1 = 0.8896 euros)