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European Commission: Osasuna

Anything you´d like to talk or debate about regarding Osasuna, in English
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European Commission: Osasuna

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Real Madrid told to repay millions in illegal state support
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European Commission to blow whistle on foul play by seven Spanish clubs
Margrethe Vestager, EU competition commissioner, will tell Spain to recoup tens of millions of euros of unlawful aid to seven clubs that came in the form of soft loans, tax breaks and sweetheart property deals.

The European Commission decision will require Real Madrid to pay back €18.4m of state support from a complex land deal with the Madrid local authority, according to people familiar with the case. Real Madrid, who won the Uefa Champions League in May, and three other clubs — Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and CA Osasuna — will also be forced to forgo a non-profit style tax privilege they have enjoyed since 1990.

Investigators are seeking to end an era of club football in which lucrative commercial enterprises attracted the world’s top talent while riding on the coat-tails of taxpayers. Real Madrid and Barcelona are ranked as the two richest clubs in the world in Deloitte’s annual ranking of football clubs by revenue.

The Commission decision regarding Real Madrid’s land deal brings to an end a long-running saga that has shed a stark light on the nexus of sport, politics and business in the Spanish capital.

It goes back to a series of controversial land deals between the club and the city government in the late 1990s, which saw Real Madrid transfer part of its old training ground to the city for redevelopment.

The site has since been developed into the Cuatro Torres business hub, dominated by the four tallest skyscrapers in the city. In return, Real Madrid was handed other plots of land throughout the city, including next to its iconic Bernabéu stadium. Some of the plots were subsequently revalued — apparently to the financial advantage of Real Madrid.

The land deal has been held up ever since as a symbol of the close relationship between local politicians and the powerful businessmen who run Spain’s largest football clubs.

But the sheer number of clubs caught up in the Commission investigation highlights how politicians at both state and regional level have been keen to support their local teams.

alencia, a city that has been rocked by political corruption scandals and whose local team was almost sunk by its towering debt load in 2013, stands out as another prominent example.

A third leg of the Brussels investigation focused on illegal loan guarantees from the Valencia Institute of Finance that benefited three of the region’s teams: Valencia CF, Hércules CF and Elche.

Spanish officials argued before the commission decision that the tax treatment of Spanish football clubs reflected the fact that they were not profit-seeking enterprises, and were, among other things, banned from paying out dividends in the manner of an ordinary listed company. Since the start of this year, clubs in any case have to pay the same rate of tax as companies, at 25 per cent.

Real Madrid and Barcelona, along with Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna, were the only clubs in Spain allowed to remain member-owned after a 1990 law that obliged all other clubs to become limited companies.

There is no official estimate of the overall financial damage that will be inflicted on Spanish football clubs as a result of the commission decision. Spain will be asked to make calculations on how much to recoup in back taxes and loan guarantee fees.

There was more positive news for Dutch football as the commission closed its investigation into five Netherlands clubs without finding evidence of illegal state support. The probe had examined dealings between local authorities and clubs including PSV Eindhoven and MVV Maastricht.
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