“Using taxpayers’ money to finance professional football clubs can create unfair competition,” the EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement. Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and five other Spanish football clubs must repay tens of millions of euros in illegal state subsidies, after the EU executive found they had received unfair financial aid from their government. The subsidies we investigated in these cases did not.”Related: Brussels set to give verdict on 'unlawful' aid to Spanish football clubsThe sums involved are small change for the Spanish clubs. “At that time we didn’t find other state aid issues which we should be pursuing,” the spokesman said. Separately, an investigation into five Dutch clubs, including PSV Eindhoven, was closed after the commission said no EU rules had been broken.

Source: The Guardian July 04, 2016 13:45 UTC