Spanish clubs, officials criticise state aid probe

Real Madrid and Barcelona kicked back Thursday at a probe by European authorities into suspicions they received illegal state aid, with Real's president branding it a "campaign" against Spanish football. Their reactions came a day after the European Commission launched an investigation into seven Spanish football clubs, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna. Those four are suspected of benefitting unduly from their status as associations owned by their members, which pay a 25-percent tax rate instead of the usual corporate rate of 30 percent. The European authorities also want to know whether the clubs enjoyed unfair exemptions from social security contributions and tax debts. "I think there is a campaign against Spanish football and I think it is bad," Real Madrid's president Perez told a Christmas breakfast conference for the media. He denied that the club's fan-owned status was a way for it to reap undue financial benefits. On the contrary, "the difference between the corporate tax rates of 25 percent and 30 percent has been so damaging to Real Madrid," Perez said. In the past 10 years, Real Madrid had to pay the taxman an extra 13 million euros ($18 million), which it could have deducted as a reinvestment if the club had been set up as a normal company, he said. Barcelona's president Sandro Rosell denied his club, currently at the top of the Spanish league, had received state aid. "The club has not received any kind of aid from any official body," Rosell told reporters on Thursday. "Barcelona fulfils the Spanish legislation that says an entity does not have to convert into a public limited sports company if it is in good financial health, as is the case with Barca." Barcelona is also fighting press reports that have sought to link star striker Lionel Messi's family with an alleged Colombian drug money laundering operation, and separate allegations over the signing of its Brazilian star striker Neymar. Spanish football 'tarnished' Perez meanwhile also criticised the Commission's investigation into a 2011 property transfer between his club and the Madrid city hall, saying the deal had already been thoroughly probed. "There has already been a complaint. There has already been an investigation. They have already tried to harm us. And nothing happened," the club boss said. The European Commission said the land swap was "very advantageous" for Real, with a plot of land owned by the club being valued at 22.7 million euros, up from a 1998 estimate of 595,000 euros. Spain's secretary of state for sport, Miguel Cardenal, said the allegations had hurt Spanish sport. "It is preposterous to believe there has been state aid," he said at the conference with Perez. "The image of Spanish football and Spanish football has been seriously tarnished. That is the reality." Spain, whose national squad is largely manned by players from Real and Barca, has won two back-to-back Euro championships and goes into next year's World Cup looking to defend the title it won in 2010. Cardenal said the alleged tax advantage for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna were improbable, since they added up to only 1.6 million euros in total the last four fiscal years. "If the complainant is right, the enormous scandal we are talking about amounts to 100,000 euros per team per year," Cardenal said. The president of the Spanish league Javier Tebas said Spanish football was a victim of its recent success. "Spanish football is being called into question because it wins lots of titles. That is being attributed to aid when there is none," he was quoted as saying by the league's website. Source: AFP