Real Madrid face legal blow as Madrid court backs La Liga over TV revenue formula

Real Madrid have suffered a significant legal setback in their long‐running dispute with La Liga after a Madrid court dismissed the club’s attempt to overturn the league’s agreement on how television income is distributed.

La Liga announced on Thursday that Civil Court No. 26 in Madrid had fully rejected the lawsuit filed by Real Madrid, which sought to annul an August 2023 agreement setting the criteria for sharing audiovisual production revenues related to the “social impact” component.

According to La Liga, the court sided with the league’s position that the contested framework complies with Spain’s legal system. The judge ruled that the agreement was approved under the powers expressly granted by Article 5.4 of Royal Decree‐Law 5/2015 and had received prior sign‐off from the body supervising the management of broadcasting rights, before being ratified by La Liga’s Board of Directors with the required two‐thirds majority.

Court backs La Liga’s distribution model

In its statement, La Liga explained that the current system maintains audience measurement as one of the benchmarks for allocating a portion of the revenues, while linking another portion to each club’s voluntary cooperation in initiatives aimed at improving the audiovisual product, taking viewing figures into account.

The judgment, as summarised by La Liga, underlines that Royal Decree‐Law 5/2015 grants the governing bodies of each competition category the authority to set distribution criteria. The court stressed that lawmakers did not restrict the notion of “generating resources through the commercialisation of television broadcasting” nor require that the criteria be based solely on audience numbers.

The court also endorsed La Liga’s argument that the model is incentive‐based and founded on voluntary participation by clubs. As a result, it concluded that the system does not strip clubs of ownership of their rights, nor of the possibility of exploiting audiovisual rights that fall outside the scope of mandatory centralised broadcasting.

Abuse of rights claim rejected

The court dismissed Real Madrid’s allegation of abuse of rights, finding that the agreement had been adopted by the competent authorities and was supported by sufficient justification regarding its purpose and operation.

The ruling further held that Real Madrid had failed to provide technical evidence to substantiate the specific financial loss the club claimed to have suffered under the new distribution mechanism.

Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo reported that, in reaching its decision, the court accepted La Liga’s legal interpretation in full and found no conflict between the agreement and the existing regulatory framework.

Further appeal still possible

This civil ruling follows an earlier setback for Real Madrid in the same dispute, after the club’s criminal complaint over the TV revenue deal had already been rejected.

La Liga stressed that Thursday’s judgment from the Madrid court is not yet final. Real Madrid retain the right to appeal within 20 working days from the date they are formally notified of the decision.