Government exempts UEFA from paying taxes on $7.6 million earned for Metropolitan Champions

According to a report by the Central Economic Administrative Court (TEAC), which El Periódico de España from the Prensa Ibérica group has access to, Treasury ‘improperly’ withholding 171k euros UEFA for the benefits of the nearly 3.5m euros that went in for the rights to broadcast that final in Spain. Therefore, he had to return the same amount plus the interest of 17,000 euros.

The official designation of the Wanda Metropolitano stadium, the current Civitas Metropolitano, as the venue for the 18/19 Champions League final, took place in September 2017 when Mariano Rajoy was still Prime Minister. A year and a half later, while Pedro Sánchez was in La Moncloa, the Government issued a Royal Decree. It had to be processed “extraordinarily and urgently” and detailing, among other things, the tax exemptions that UEFA will benefit from due to the event.

Javier Antón, then spokesperson for PSOE Sports, later explained to the newspaper: ace “This commitment is inherited from negotiations with the previous People’s Party Government. We voted in favor because Makes enough impact to be profitable. Spain has always bet on the organization of these events.” According to the calculations considered at the time, the 2019 Champions League final was expected to leave Spain more than 122 million euros in revenue, 66 of which were in Madrid.

Moreover, this was not the only time the Government approved an advantageous tax regime to encourage the celebration of a major sporting event; the same more recently, especially in December 2022, 37. Copa América Barcelona sailing. He then declared the income he earned between April 1, 2022 and December 31, 2025, exempt from corporate tax “due to the event and to the extent that it is directly related to his participation in the competition”.

Legal certainty for UEFA

This document, published in the Official State Gazette on December 28, 2018, as stated in the same text ” proximity of dates The place where such activities will be held and the tax framework to be applied in the name of the principle of legal certainty should be prepared sufficiently in advance.

This provision also included tax exemption for the participating teams due to the final. Tottenham Hotspury hand Liverpool FCIt was he who declared himself the champion of the Champions League on June 1, 2019. Unless, of course, the clubs are not Spanish, as it is after all.

This means, for example, that the Spanish tax authorities cannot charge non-Spain resident footballers for performing their work, do not withhold any bonuses for participation, and will not tax individual awards such as: For example, best man of the match awards given in that match.

How was the decree processed?

The reason why the Government then headed by Pedro Sánchez justified the establishment of a different tax regime is, as recognized in the Royal Decree, commitments made so UEFA sporting events such as the 2019 Champions League final or the Euro2020 matches will take place in Spain. In other words, the agreements reached by the Rajoy Government and viewed positively by the Sánchez administration.

“The commitments made by the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, together with UEFA, to host the headquarters of the upcoming events to be organized by the said Union in our country. requires regulation of a specific tax regime“explains the urgently executed decree, which was not put to a prior vote at the Congress of Deputies, although it was approved by the votes of the PSOE, Unidas Podemos and the ERC a few weeks later.

Of course, they voted in favor, as Podemos explained at the time, only because the Royal Decree was a “complex” where “measures like personal income tax exemption for maternity and paternity leave were mixed with issues that had nothing.” To see something like this from UEFA”.