As the complainant in the Dutch cases I was in discussion with the supporters of MVV on their website. April 2013 I informed them about the restructuring aid. When Maastricht would have chosen to ask the EC permission to restructure MVV the same way Arnhem did in the Vitesse situation, there would have been no problem at all. At that occasion I advised (via the supporters) Maastricht to answer the EC in their probe to handle in that way. The EC decided in that way. Very elegant solution. I expect these criteria will apply in the future in any case with star aid support in professional sport.

Forgot to tell that mr. Almunia asked me, in reply on my email of 9 May 2010 CP 63/80, to inform him about my findings concerning Real Madrid and other football clubs in Europe and illegal state aid. Which I did from that moment on. Any suggestion he was delaying this process is therefore false. I know, because he (of course by his staff) was always in contact with me and willing to come to the best decision. That takes time.

It would be interesting to know whether Mr. Jorritsma now understands that his cooperation with Mr. Almunia and the
baseless crusade against Dutch football has costed a lot of money and resources to the EU taxpayers at a time of crisis in which those resources where needed elsewhere.

Five cases dismissed out of five and still trying to lecture us... If he or Mr. Almunia had just read the guidelines for restructuring companies before running amok.

If the EU was a well functioning Institution, Mr. Jorritsma should be made responsible for the costs for the EU and for the clubs & municipalities (reputation, legal, etc.) that had been falsely accused.

Mr. Jorritsma, will you please apologise to the EU taxpayer for your reckless behaviour?

On the contrary. Now it is clear that state aid is only allowed under very strict circumstances. Those of restructuring aid have to be met. And that includes a whole set of obligations to ensure the European (nut just the Dutch) taxpayers are no longer the safeguards of reckless politicians and club owners still paying overprivileged players too much money. The EC was very elegant towards the Dutch clubs to define their star aid afterwards as restructuring aid. The EC ' forgot'  to ask their track record on state aid in the past. If the EC would have done so, the decision would have been negative because those conditions would not be met. The cases were not dismissed, they were saved. The Spanish cases learn the European clubs and municipalities the limits. They all have to stick to that and all the accountants concerned now have to report about those finances they are whether or not in compliance with the rules. That is profit, proud to have made that contribution to the future tax payers.

By the way mr. Eindhoven. Interesting to see your post is anonymus, or is your real name Eindhoven? Your suggestion I have to pay the costs is only fair. As fair it would be to gain the profits. That will make me a rich man. See the penalties for the Spanish clubs. But your suggestion as also very unfair. It will make any whistleblower to a calculated naked-short-seller. Let us leave that to the casino-players. Those people who have put the whole of Europe in crisis.

Oh dear, no apologies, no remorse and more accusations against the EC and the municipalities/clubs involved.

The Restructuring guidelines had been published already in 2004 and you should have read them carefully before wasting EU resources. It was clear to any one, apparently other than you, that these regulations existed and that these conditions had to be met (as it was the case in the Dutch cases).

The EC was not "elegant", it has simply applied the existing rules correctly (those rules that you should have read a few years ago). If you believe that further restructuring aid had already been provided to the Dutch clubs and that the EC has failed to take this into consideration, you should simply, rather than critizising the EC, go ahead and inform them. They would surely welcome your evidence, if any. Until you do that, please stop bringing the EU institutions into disrepute by suggesting that "elegant" solutions have been adopted. You are accusing the EC of "forgetting" things just like unsuccessful footballers blame the referee for their own shortcomings. Could you please at least provide any example of any previous "aid" that has been "forgotten" by the EC in its "elegant" decisions?

Please also stop bragging and be more modest, you have not rescued a single euro for any taxpayer. Your only contribution is five dismissed cases and as a result EU resources (funded by the taxpayer) have been unnecessarily wasted. Not to mention those of the municipalities that had been falsely accused.

You say that the cases "learn" but it seems that you have not learned anything about your failures (five out of five). The result is zero recovery and huge costs in the form of wasted resources at EU, municipality and club level. You have created your own miniature crisis. Rather than accusing the EC without providing any evidence and continuing to damage the reputations of those clubs and municipalities, you should be apologising to the taxpayer. It is never too late.

There was no notification and there was no plan of restructuring the organization before state aid was given. That plan did not exist. In such a plan, and I quote:
" 36. Het herstructureringsplan moet de omstandigheden beschrijven die tot de moeilijkheden van de onderneming hebben geleid, zodat kan worden nagegaan of de voorgestelde maatregelen passend zijn. Het houdt onder meer rekening met de actuele situatie en de verwachte ontwikkeling van vraag en aanbod op de relevante productmarkt, aan de hand van best-case-, worst-case- en neutrale scenario's, alsmede de specifieke sterke en zwakke punten van de onderneming. Het stelt de onderneming in staat de overgang te maken naar een nieuwe structuur die haar uitzicht biedt op levensvatbaarheid op lange termijn en haar in staat stelt op eigen benen te staan.
37. Het herstructureringsplan moet zorgen voor een omslag waardoor de onderneming, nadat de herstructurering is voltooid, in staat is al haar kosten te dekken, met inbegrip van afschrijvingen en financiële lasten. Het verwachte rendement op eigen vermogen dient voldoende te zijn om de geherstructureerde onderneming in staat te stellen op eigen kracht op de markt te concurreren. Wanneer de moeilijkheden van de ondernemingen aan een gebrekkige corporate governance zijn te wijten, dienen de nodige aanpassingen te worden doorgevoerd."
When such a plan does not exist you have to decide how to continu your probe.
From the Vitesse case every organization could have learned.
You seem to forget I put the word ' forget'  between brackets, that is on purpose.
You seem also to forget there was no decision from the EC in professional football clubs at all. From now on these rules must be met at the beginning of delivering state aid, not at half time. And the probe was not only in the Netherlands. In your vocabulary, which I denounce, in Spain there was a 5 out of 5 win. And a lot of money (in my opinion not enough) regained for the tas payer. How about that? And that is for the whole of Europe.

M.i. kan het nu ook in het Nederlands.
Wat betreft anonimiteit geen antwoord. Dan de vraag wat of er voorafgaand aan het besluit allemaal duidelijk moest zijn:
" 72. Reddingssteun is een eenmalige operatie die in hoofdzaak is bedoeld om de exploitatie van een onderneming voort te zetten gedurende een beperkte periode waarin de toekomst van de onderneming kan worden geëvalueerd. Het dient echter niet mogelijk te zijn de herhaalde toekenning van reddingssteun maatregelen toe te staan waarmee enkel de status quo wordt bestendigd, het onvermijdelijke wordt uitgesteld en tegelijkertijd de economische en sociale problemen op andere, meer efficiënte producenten of op andere lidstaten worden afgewenteld. Daarom mag reddingssteun slechts eenmaal worden toegekend. In overeenstemming met ditzelfde beginsel mag ook herstructureringssteun slechts eenmaal worden toegekend, om te voorkomen dat ondernemingen die enkel dankzij herhaalde staatssteun kunnen overleven, ten onrechte steun ontvangen. Ten slotte mag, wanneer reddingssteun wordt toegekend aan een onderneming die al herstructureringssteun heeft ontvangen, worden aangenomen dat de moeilijkheden van de begunstigde onderneming een terugkerend probleem zijn en dat herhaalde overheidsmaatregelen aanleiding geven tot vervalsing van de mededinging waardoor het gemeenschappelijk belang wordt geschaad. Dergelijke herhaalde overheidsmaatregelen dienen niet te worden toegestaan.
73. Wanneer een voornemen tot het verlenen van reddings- of herstructureringssteun bij de Commissie wordt aangemeld, moet de lidstaat aangeven of de betrokken onderneming in het verleden reeds reddings- of herstructureringssteun heeft ontvangen, met inbegrip van vóór de datum van toepassing van de onderhavige richtsnoeren verleende steun en van niet-aangemelde steun (1). Indien dit het geval is en wanneer minder dan tien jaar is verstreken sinds de toekenning van de reddingssteun, het aflopen van de herstructureringsperiode of de beëindiging van de tenuitvoerlegging van het herstructureringsplan (naargelang welke van deze gebeurtenissen het meest recent is), staat de Commissie geen verdere reddings- of herstructureringssteun toe, behalve in de volgende gevallen:
a) wanneer herstructureringssteun volgt op de toekenning van reddingssteun als onderdeel van één enkele herstructureringsoperatie; of
b) wanneer reddingssteun onder de voorwaarden van punt 3.1.1 werd toegekend en op deze steun geen door de Staat gesteunde herstructurering volgde, indien:
i) redelijkerwijs mag worden aangenomen dat de onderneming na de toekenning van reddingssteun op de lange termijn levensvatbaar zal zijn, en
ii) na ten minste vijf jaar nieuwe reddings- en herstructureringssteun noodzakelijk wordt wegens onvoorzienbare omstandigheden (2) die de onderneming niet zijn toe te rekenen, of
c) in uitzonderlijke en onvoorzienbare omstandigheden die de onderneming niet zijn toe te rekenen.
In de onder b) en c) bedoelde gevallen kan de vereenvoudigde procedure van punt 3.1.2 niet worden gebruikt."

Vraag nu naar het track record van alle begunstigde clubs in de afgelopen 10 jaar, kijk ook naar de staatssteun die aan alle clubs is verleend in de afgelopen jaren en die kunnen worden geschaard onder deze noemer. Dan zal het duidelijk zijn dat voor alle clubs in ons land deze bepalingen vanaf nu gelden en dat de accountants die de Jaarrekeningen moeten goedkeuren hier van uit dienen te gaan.

This is incorrect since, as you know, there were plans for each of the clubs and the EC had already ruled a long time ago that professional sport clubs are undertakings for EU law purposes, including State aid whether any recovery decision had already been taken in that area or not. Please do not try to claim credit for reinventing the wheel.

I insist that the end result of your actions is five out of five failures, huge amounts of public resources being wasted, reputational damage (with municipalities suing the EC and the EC backtracking after costly in-depth investigations), zero money recovered and a few interviews given by yourself.

More importantly, accusing the Commission of "forgetting" (with or without brackets) relevant issues when adopting a decision is a very serious matter and you have failed to provide a single example of that previous aid. You should either provide some evidence or admit that, contrary to your accusation, the Commission did not "forget" anything.  If you can prove that the EC "forgot" any aspect (previous aid or anything else), I am of course very happy to admit that you were right but I seriously doubt it.

It seems that Mr. Jorritsma is very happy to copy and paste paragraphs of the Restructuring guidelines (if he had just read them a few years ago...) but has failed to provide a single example of the previous aid that, according to him, the EC "forgot" to consider in its Dutch decisions.

What a complete waste of taxpayers' money and EU resources and now blaming the EC without providing a single example

Just compare Mr. Jorritsma's five out of five DIY fiasco with the very efficient job performed by FC Bayern on the Spanish cases:

www.espnfc.co.uk/.../bayern-munich-made-eu-complaint-over-state-aid-spanish-mep

Dear mr. Eindhoven. I love copy paste. It will bring the audience the real texts. And I also like to do my homework. For example reading de Groene Amsterdammer about state aid in the last decade; it is huge. And I expect my opponents to do their homework to. And find out whether or not the Dutch clubs have received aid from their municipalities during the period I mentioned. And google my name and Real Madrid. See the news in Reuter form 2013. Here copy pasted.

Life | Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:36am GMT Related: SPORT
EU state aid probe 'not anti-Spain campaign'
MADRID | BY IAIN ROGERS
A European Commission probe into possible illegal state aid to seven Spanish football clubs including Real Madrid and Barcelona is not part of a malicious campaign against Spain, one of the complainants said on Friday.

Loek Jorritsma, a retired senior policy adviser at the Netherlands ministry of sports, made a formal complaint in 2010 highlighting what he believed was illegal aid to clubs in his native Holland as well as to Real.

The Commission opened an investigation into five Dutch clubs, including PSV Eindhoven, in March and launched a separate probe into Real, Barca, Athletic Bilbao, Osasuna, Valencia, Elche and Hercules on Wednesday.

The announcement of the Spanish investigation prompted a furious response, with some claiming it was driven by envy at the world and European champions' recent successes.

Real president Florentino Perez labelled it "a campaign against Spanish football" and said the world's richest club by income had done nothing wrong, while secretary of state for sports Miguel Cardenal complained of "damage to Spain's image".

Jorritsma said his motivation was to identify possible instances of illegal state aid to professional clubs wherever they occurred in Europe.

"It's a campaign on behalf of competitive balance, against foul play and for a level playing field, which is disturbed by state aid," Jorritsma told Reuters.

"I treat the Dutch clubs and all European clubs the same way," the 70-year-old added.

"It is state aid and they are professional organisations like banks or any other enterprise.

"It's not culture and there is no law that gives you any freedom to jeopardise the market."

Jorritsma is not the only complainant in the Spanish case and the EU has said a representative of "several European clubs" also filed a formal objection.

The Commission has declined to reveal their identity, saying it was a confidential matter.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

Jorritsma is happy to go on the record, however.

"I am a former civil servant and I don't like to do things anonymously and I take responsibility for the things I do," he said.

Representatives of some of the Dutch clubs he denounced had even threatened him with physical violence, he added.

"I explained my reasons to them and in the end they all thought I was very brave.

"Because of my professional background I know how to formulate things."

One of the areas Jorritsma highlighted is a property deal Real struck with the City of Madrid in 2011 that the Commission said appeared "very advantageous".

The swap deal was based on a re-evaluation of a plot of land at a value of 22.7 million euros ($31 million), instead of its earlier supposed value in 1998 of 595,000 euros.

The Spanish investigation, which could take many months to conclude, is also examining whether Real, Barca, Bilbao and Osasuna benefited from special tax treatment.

Valencia, Elche and Hercules allegedly received illegal financial assistance from the regional government in the form of loans and bank guarantees.

All deny wrongdoing and the Spanish government has said it would fight to prevent the clubs being forced to pay back any aid deemed to be illegal.

(Editing by John O'Brien)

Ha ha, the article is really funny: "I was very brave", "I know how to formulate things", "I take responsibility for the things I do"... wow!

We can either trust you or a Spanish MEP with knowledge of the matter who has disclosed that it was FC Bayern who initiated the complaints but it is of course unlikely that Rumenigge will self-glorify himself in an interview. Plus anyone following the Spanish cases knows that they were brought to the Commission in 2009. What did you exactly complain about in 2010? Please explain. Yet again claiming credit for reinventing the wheel?

I insist that the result of your actions is five out of five failures, huge amounts of public resources being wasted, reputational damage (with municipalities suing the EC and the EC backtracking after costly in-depth investigations), zero money recovered and a few self-glorifying interviews given by yourself.

And even worse than that, still awaiting a single example of the previous aid to the Dutch clubs that the Commission, according to your accusation, "forgot" about. A single example would be sufficient, great opportunity to take responsibility for your accusation.