Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Racing Santander and Mediapro have been fined amounts totalling €15m for breaching television contract rules.
The quartet of clubs and the broadcast firm had been under investigation by the National Competition Commission [CNC] – later merged into the National Commission on Markets and Competition [CNMC] – since mid-2012 for agreeing respective deals relating to media rights for games played in the Spanish League and Copa del Rey.
Their multi-year contracts were seen as having contravened fair competition rules as per an April 2010 resolution by the CNC, for ‘failing to ensure the rights for League and Copa del Rey games – excluding the final – were released on to the market with the regularity necessary to ensure effective competition’.
Today the CNMC has ruled that those contracts were ‘in breach of the first and seventh measures of the April 2010 resolution of the CNC [the group succeeded by the CNMC in 2012]’, and have labelled it as ‘a very serious offence’.
For their respective deals, Mediapro have been handed a €6.5m penalty, Real Madrid €3.9m, Barcelona €3.6m, Sevilla €900,000 and Racing €300,000.
These fines take into account the length of the contracts signed by each affected party and how they contravene the CNC’s April 2010 resolution.
