EU suspects State aid in Football

[KelvinsRightGlove]

Gives Real Madrid as an example, I thought it was common knowledge Madrid Council paid millions to Real for years?

 

It's certainly something I have heard on several occasions.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22024669

[This Charming Man]

Didn't Real sell their training complex to the council for hundres of millions then bought it back for peanuts? This was when they were on the verge of bankruptcy after years of building a galactico squad despite having no means of paying for any of them?

[melmacian_saint]

Nothing unknown in the messy Iberia.

 

Knowing the situation of Portuguese football quite well myself, last season in our equivalent of League One, three teams were forced to resign before the start of this season because of lack of funds. The main reason: 90% of their income came from council subsidies. These were PROFESSIONAL teams (albeit competing outside the Portuguese professional league association).

 

And in Spain, the existence of regional governments made it all worse. You check any of the 25 professional teams in admin in the LFP, in many cases public institutions are the main creditors and a lot more money was lost in similar deals to that of Real Madrid and other types of state funding.

 

But fear not, it's tumbling down faster than expected.

[John Boy Saint]

So how do the Stadiums owned by the Cities and Towns stack up with this in the German Bundesliga?