EU lifts million euro fine against Real

Spain’s record champion Real Madrid will now not have to pay a fine of 18.4 million euros for illegal state aid.

The Court of the European Union in Luxembourg annulled a decision of the European Commission in 2016, which had instructed the club to make a corresponding payment.

The Commission ‘did not take into account all the elements of the project in its context’, according to the grounds of the judgment. It was therefore ‘not possible to classify the measure imposed as State aid’, since it ‘could not sufficiently demonstrate that it conferred an advantage on the defendant’.

The amount resulted from a compensation payment in 2011, when the city of Madrid paid the club 22.7 million euros for a land sale that burst in 1998. According to the EU Commission, this payment was 18.4 million euros too high, which was tantamount to illegal funding.

In February, an EU court had already declared back taxes in the millions against Real null and void. Here, too, the EU Commission erroneously classified the claim for a lower income tax rate as illegal state aid. FC Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and CA Osasuna were also affected.