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Real Madrid issue statement about European commission file

Los Blancos wanted to share their take on it.

Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images

Real Madrid published the following statement about the European commission file.

In light of the advanced information from the European Commission regarding files opened about alleged state help for various Spanish football clubs, Real Madrid C. F. would like to express the following:

1. Regarding the agreement signed in 2011 between our club and the Madrid City Council, that had the basic aim that the City Council would compensate itself in the way most beneficial to them, in the case of the a failure to deliver the plot of land B-32 in Las Tablas, as it was public land. This obligation was contracted by the Madrid City Council for the barter execution convention of the Sports City, signed with Real Madrid in 1998. Any other compensation formula would have cost the City Council practically double the value of the plot of land B-32 fulfilled in the convention.

2. The valuation method used in the cited convention is the only objective method, as it is based in the cadastral value, legally obliging for all Spanish City Councils, and therefore is applied in all transaction between City Councils and third parties whether they are public or private. The cadastral value is calculated by the Treasury Department and it is that which is used by the government as it's the most objective.

3. It is a surprise that the European Commission have used a valuation made by an architect's office in Barcelona to dictate their decision, when said firm has little experience in making similar estimates in general and almost none in the city of Madrid. Real Madrid, despite the only objective and legally obliging valuation being the cadastral value, presented in the report a valuation made by one of the most important companies in the world, Aguirre Newman, whose report concluded that Real Madrid had even been under-compensated by more than 7.5 million euros.

Due to these reasons, once Real Madrid know the decisions made, will appeal in the Court of Justice of the European Union with confidence that those decisions will be revoked.

In any case, Real Madrid, following a prudential accounting criteria, has in their provisional accounts all of the quantities whose reimbursement may finally be obliged.

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