European justice denies that Valencia received public aid as the Commission accused

Interior view of Mestalla, Valencia's soccer field. HEINO KALIS (REUTERS)

Relief in Mestalla and in Singapore.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) agrees with Valencia in the legal fight that it had with the Commission on account of some guarantees that the Valencian Institute of Finance (IFV), the public bank of the Generalitat.

The examination that the European Executive had done had concluded that it was State aid and that the team owned by Peter Lim would have to return 23.2 million to the regional government.

The ruling annuls the Brussels decision by considering the appeal it had filed against the ruling that was issued in the first instance in 2020 to be "unfounded" and that already agreed with the soccer club.

Valencia has not been the only Valencian football team that has been in trouble with the feared Competition department of the European Commission.

Elche and Hércules also faced files with similar conclusions.

In all three cases, the cases have been diluted in court.

The files in Brussels started in 2013, when Joaquín Almunia was in charge of the body that is in charge of monitoring that equal conditions are maintained in the market.

The investigations concluded three years later, already with the Danish Margrethe Vestager as responsible.

The decision was a setback for both the Valencian teams who were forced to return more than 30 million altogether.

The three sanctions were appealed.

At first they had mixed luck in the courts: in 2018 Valencia did not achieve a precautionary suspension of the Brussels decision and Hercules did.

So the judges did not get to the bottom of the matter.

Yes, they did it two years later, and in all three cases the judges of the General Court of the EU (TGUE), that is, in the first instance, agreed with the Spanish teams.

The ruling issued this Thursday by the CJEU only concerns Valencia and not the Alicante teams.

In the case of Elche, the Commission did not even file an appeal against the TGUE ruling.

The note in which the European judges explain their decision is a severe setback for Competition: "The Court of Justice recalls that the burden of proof falls on the Commission."

Consequently, the judges add that "it is up to the Commission to carry out an overall assessment taking into account any relevant data in the specific case that allows it to determine whether it is clear that the beneficiary company would not have obtained comparable facilities" when resorting to the private sector. instead of the public.

The tone hardens when it points out that “the Court of Justice confirms that there is nothing in the contested decision that suggests that the Commission had verified whether there was a corresponding reference guarantee premium offered on the financial markets”.

Competition, say the judges, deduced that since Valencia Club de Fútbol was in crisis when the public bank IFV granted the guarantees "no financial entity would have offered a guarantee in favor of said club, but also that it should be excluded that there could be a loan similar not endorsed”.

This leads the CJEU to conclude that "there are no elements of certain reliability and coherence" in Brussels' assessments of what was happening in the market.

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