The Finnish Federation of eSports is now a member of the Finnish Olympic Committee has acknowledged its existence. Club Valencia (Spain) referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union against the decision of the European Commission on the state aid granted by the Kingdom of Spain.
In Finland, the Finnish esports federation becomes a member of the Olympic Committee
Finland is the 22th member country of the International Federation of eSports to recognize eSports as a sport (China, South Korea, South Africa, Russia, Italy, Denmark, Nepal, ...). 24 other members of this Federation would also have initiated a process of recognition of the eSport.
The President of the International Federation of eSports wishes that this will soon integrate the Olympic Games. The Federation has also applied for membership of the IOC, which should be examined shortly.
The International Federation, which is one of the signatories of the "World Anti Doping Agency for the past three years, has already implemented several anti-doping controls on players participating in the eSports World Championship.
In Spain, public aid to controversial professional football clubs
Spain had been sanctioned by the European Commission in July 2016 following the State aid granted to the clubs of Valencia, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
After three separate investigations, the European Commission had concluded that public aid granted by Spain to seven professional football clubs had conferred on these clubs an undue advantage over other clubs in violation of the rules of competition, EU cooperation in the field of State aid.
The Commission therefore deduced that Spain should "recover illegal state aid from seven clubs, namely FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, FC Valencia, Athletic Bilbao, Atlético Osasuna, Elche and Hércules".
Also, the Club de Valence has lodged an appeal with the CJEU the 20 2016 October in order to annul the decision of the Commission of 4 July 2016.
In support of the action, the applicant relies on eight pleas in law:
- "First plea, alleging manifest error of assessment of three of the four criteria for considering a guarantee as State aid. According to the applicant, the Commission erroneously held that Valencia CF was in a difficult financial situation, since it relied on piecemeal information, did not take account of the specific business soccer clubs, referred to the book value of the players and not to their real market value and did not analyze a viability plan that was based in all respects on realistic conjectures. Secondly, the Commission wrongly considered that the guarantee covered more than 80% of the loan and, third, erred in the assessment of the general interest rate of the loan in relation to the market price.
- Second plea, in the alternative, alleging manifest errors by the Commission when carrying out compatibility checks on four of the six criteria referred to in the Community guidelines on State aid for rescuing and the restructuring of firms in difficulty, namely: a return to long-term viability, the prevention of any excessive distortion of competition through counterparties, the principle of limiting aid to the minimum, help.
- Third plea in law, alleging that the Commission committed an error in assessing the significant value of the consideration offered, namely the pledge on the shares, as well as other guarantees granted by the Fundación Valencia to the Instituto Valenciano of Finanzas.
- Fourth plea in law, alleging an error in the assessment of the principal and interest of the alleged aid to be recovered, since the Commission wrongly considered that the rates had remained constant throughout the measures and misjudged the their duration.
- Fifth plea, alleging infringement of the principle of proportionality, inasmuch as the amounts ordered by the Commission to be recovered are disproportionate to those already paid.
- Sixth plea, alleging an error of assessment by the Commission in that it did not consider the lender to be the beneficiary and did not take into account the existence of a new owner of the club.
- Seventh ground of appeal, alleging infringement of the principle of non-discrimination, in so far as the Commission assessed equally the respective situations of the clubs under investigation, whereas the latter were in totally different circumstances.
- Eighth plea in law, alleging infringement of the principle of the".
