EU rules 7 Spanish sides have to pay back excessive government aid

The European Commission decided on Monday that seven Spanish football clubs, including Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, have to pay back almost 69 million euros (around 76 million US dollars) in what it considers to be illegal state aid.

The Commission has decided that Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Club Bilbao and Osasuna all benefitted from their status as non-profit making sporting clubs, which are owned by their members.

This allowed the clubs to pay a lower rate of tax than other sides in Spain which are owned by shareholders or run as public limited companies. The four clubs will each have to pay a fine of up to five million euros, although the final sum for each club has still to be decided and all four will almost certainly appeal.

The Commission explained this status gave the four an "unfair advantage over other clubs."

Real Madrid were also ruled to have benefitted from a land transfer deal with the Madrid City Hall, which overvalued their former training ground by 18.4 million euros. The club presided over by Florentino Perez will also have to play that money back.

Meanwhile Valencia, Hercules and Elche were judged to have been given loans on over "favorable terms" from the Valencia regional government.

Valencia will have to return 20.4 million euros, Hercules (from the city of Alicante) 4.1 million euros, while Elche have to return 3.7 million.

"Professional football is a commercial activity with significant money involved and public money must comply with fair competition rules. The subsidies we investigated in these cases did not," commented Margrethe Vestager, the EU Commissioner responsible for competition policy on the Commission's findings. Enditem