In the wake of Racing Santander's 3-0 defeat at Camp Nou last Saturday, manager Miguel Angel Portugal shrugged and told reporters, "It's what was expected. What can you do stop Pep Guardiola's team?"

It was a loaded question under Racing's current circumstances. Season after season of flirting with relegation while watching its better players jump into bed with richer suitors could be a thing of the past on the Cantabrian coast. On Jan. 22, Racing was purchased by Indian tycoon Ahsan Ali Syed, who stated his intention to "take Racing to a greater level of success in Spain and Europe."

Foreign takeovers in Spain are far from common, unlike in the English Premier League. Syed and Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, the Malaga president, are the only two non-Spanish club controllers in the country.

But the answer to Portugal's question may well be investors like them.

Real Madrid and Barcelona's stranglehold in La Liga is like that of a hungry python. Each season, the two richest clubs in the land throw another coil around the league, slowly but surely squeezing the competitive life out of it. Under the current deal for sharing television revenues, which is negotiated individually by each club, Real and Barcelona share about half of the 650 million euros each year. This will not change until 2014, at the earliest, when the contract expires. Under a new deal that was signed by a majority of Primera and Segunda Division teams this past November, the pot will be split somewhat more equitably. But the big two will still receive around 34 percent of the pie, with tier-two clubs Atletico and Valencia pocketing 11 percent each. Forty-five percent would go to the rest of the Primera teams, 9 percent to Segunda clubs and 1 percent set aside for parachute payments for relegated teams.

Not everyone approves. Jose Maria del Nido, the firebrand president of Sevilla, is leading a simmering rebellion against the voracious big two by his club, Villarreal, Athletic, Espanyol, Zaragoza and Real Sociedad -- all of which refused to sign the deal. "Under the current system of revenue sharing," del Nido told the press, "it is impossible for any club other than Barca or Madrid to win the league."

He's right. Not only does Barca and Real get the biggest cut from TV revenue, they also rake in much more from merchandise and gate receipts. It adds up to a financial chasm between the haves and the have nots. Barcelona drew crowds of 70,000 for its recent league matches against Levante, Racing and Malaga. Real pulled in 70,000 for the visit of Valencia and Sevilla, and 80,000 when Atletico made the trip across the capital.

It's a different story among the smaller clubs. Mallorca pulled in 23,000, an almost record attendance, for the first match of the season against Real. Almeria's 1-1 tie a week ago was witnessed by 14,000 people. About 15,000 turned out to watch Barcelona at Getafe's Coliseum.

In other words, the top division is in danger of becoming a more glamorous Scottish Premier League.

Unless, of course, someone upsets the big two's apple cart by pumping private funds into a team. While there is little evidence yet that a Manchester City or a Chelsea -- two teams purchased by foreign owners -- is going to emerge in La Liga, that trail is being beaten by Al Thani and Syed. Al Thani has stated a preference for a gradual project at Malaga and the side's winter spending was hardly extravagant. (For more on Malaga, click here.) It should, though, prove to be enough to keep Malaga in the top division, and there is little to prevent Al Thani from aping his Emirates peers at Manchester City and mounting a spree in the summer. Syed, meanwhile, has had little time to open his wallet, but it is only a matter of time before Racing is reinforced.

Time is also ticking for Racing, Malaga and any club which might follow their lead in bringing in a foreign owner. Uefa's financial Fair Play rules come into effect in 2013 in a move designed not just to curtail the transfer excesses of the past decade but also end the ruinous spending among more modest clubs. If the regulations were enforced today, Hercules and Zaragoza, among others, would be in Uefa's sights for not paying their players. It's a blight on the Spanish game that is all too easy to dismiss when stories emerge of Jermaine Pennant, who moved from Zaragoza to EPL side Stoke City at the beginning of this season, forgetting he had a Porsche parked at Zaragoza's railway station.

By contrast, when players of lowly Pontevedra dropped to their knees at kick-off in a recent third division match against Lugo to protest non-payment of wages, there was considerably more sympathy. Salaries at lower league clubs are wildly disparate to those in Primera. Possession to Pontevedra's players means a good deal more than keeping the ball.

What's a Liga team going for these days? It's not quite as much as you may think. Al Thani bought Malaga for a reported 36 million euros. Syed's bank account is around 40 million euros lighter after assuming Racing's debt and paying the regional government of Cantabria back a syndicated loan it extended to the club. He has promised investment of around 90 million euros over the next five years.

But Real and Barca cannot be purchased, because they are owned by their members, who elect -- and can eject -- club presidents. Even if a foreign investor could buy out 50,000 or so club members, he still could not control Real. Item one of the club's "requisites to become a candidate to the presidency and member of the board" reads simply: "must be Spanish." Florentino Perez won re-election in 2009 unopposed. He was the only candidate able to raise the 52 million euros deposit.

And if you think Uefa's new Fair Play rules -- which state that a club must "finance their business activities with the resources they generate themselves" -- are going to put a serious dent in the way Real and Barca do business, think again. The big two will always be able to generate cash through merchandising, membership and gate receipts. They can also fall back on selling their brands if they find themselves a little short. Case in point: When Sandro Rosell took charge at Barcelona, he took notice of a 150 million euros hole in the club's books. Rosell hawked the sponsorship rights to the famous shirt to the highest bidder, the Qatar Foundation, which amenably agreed to pay exactly that amount over the next five years.

For La Liga's other teams to keep pace, investment from any available source is the only viable option. That might not be to everybody's liking, but then neither is a league with only two possible winners before a ball has been kicked. Foreign input may prove to be the only recourse to restore Spain's league to a competition worthy of the name.