Brussels, 04/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 4 July, the European Commission concluded that the aid measures granted by several Dutch cities to four football clubs - FC Den Bosch, MVV Maastricht, NEC Nijmegen and Willem II Tilburg - were in line with the 2004 guidelines on state aid for the rescue and restructuring of companies in difficulties.
“Professional football clubs our businesses and the Commission needs to make sure that the economic competition between clubs is not distorted by state subsidies for a select few”, the Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, commented in a press release.
The Commission's in-depth investigation, which opened in March 2013, convinced the European institution that the clubs Den Bosch, MVV Maastricht, NEC Nijmegen and Willem II had set in place restructuring plans which meant that they made a sufficient contribution to the costs of their restructuring and took measures to compensate for the public aid received, such as reducing the number of employees, the number of registered players and players' wages.
The Commission also examined the sale and lease-back transaction between the municipality of Eindhoven and the club PSV Eindhoven concerning the land on which the Philips Stadium, a training block and a car park were built. The city bought back the land in 2011 for a sum in excess of €48 million and the club pays an annual fee to lease the land. Finding the transaction to have been carried out on terms acceptable to a market investor, the Commission concluded that PSV Eindhoven had not received incompatible public aid. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)