{"id":464834,"date":"2026-09-14T11:16:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/14\/lombra-di-speculazioni-edilizie-in-violazione-delle-regole-ue-a-bruxelles-il-real-madrid-diventa-un-caso\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T11:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:46:36","slug":"the-spectre-of-property-speculation-potentially-breaching-eu-rules-real-madrid-becomes-a-case-for-brussels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/14\/the-spectre-of-property-speculation-potentially-breaching-eu-rules-real-madrid-becomes-a-case-for-brussels\/","title":{"rendered":"The spectre of property speculation, potentially breaching EU rules: Real Madrid becomes a case for Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 A major real\u2011estate speculation scandal looms, with possible breaches of EU rules: Real Madrid\u2019s manoeuvres are turning into a full\u2011blown case. Spanish MEPs Estrella Gal\u00e1n (The Left), Jaume Asens Llodr\u00e0 (Greens) and Vicent Marz\u00e0 Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez (Greens) have raised concerns about the plan to expand the buildable area of the land on which Real Madrid City, the football club\u2019s training centre, is situated. <\/strong>Here, the MEPs allege in the relevant parliamentary question that<\/a> \u201cirregularities and possible unlawful favourable treatment\u201d are taking place. <\/p>\n

According to the parliamentary question, the Madrid City Council is processing a change to Real Madrid FC\u2019s plot DO-190 in Valdebebas that “increases the area of buildable land from 360,000 m\u00b2 to 532,550 m\u00b2, allows the land to be used for profit-making purposes and increases the value of the land to EUR 360.1 million.\u201d According to MEPs, there is also another aspect to the matter: \u201cReal Madrid competes with European clubs, but the public advantages granted by Madrid can distort that competition, a scenario covered by Articles 107 and 108 TFEU,” the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Essentially, there are concerns that State aid could distort competition. Moreover, the aforementioned Article 107<\/a> defines as “incompatible with the internal market” any state aid “in any form” that may distort competition. In the present case, this would occur through changes in land use and planning permissions. Hence, the explicit request for an investigation into the case, to determine whether the decision taken by Madrid City Council \u201c<\/strong>grants Real Madrid a selective advantage in breach\u201d of European regulations<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Then there is the accusation levelled at the European Commission, because, in tabling the question, the MEPs point out that the European Parliament had previously raised this issue in a question<\/a> denouncing contracts awarded for the car parks at the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u. In this stadium, Real Madrid play their home matches. “The Commission claimed ignorance and did not investigate. Subsequently, the courts rendered null and void the tender and the award of the contracts and found that the transaction benefited the club, not the general interest.” Essentially, the second von der Leyen Commission is being asked not to act like the first, which turned a blind eye to suspicious cases later found to be irregular.<\/strong> Once again, Real Madrid bursts onto the 12-star political scene. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEPs are calling on the Commission to investigate the decisions taken in favour of the club at the local level: there are concerns that state aid could distort competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":464829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712,25717],"tags":[26247,25755,35698,33394],"class_list":["post-464834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-sports","tag-building-en","tag-news-parliament-en","tag-real-madrid","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464835,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464834\/revisions\/464835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}