Bernabéu concert licenses remain valid

Image: Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, uggboy, CC BY 2.0

Madrid City Council has contradicted claims by local residents and confirmed that the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium holds a valid license to host concerts.

ABC Madrid said the Residents’ Association of People Affected by the Bernabéu presented an appeal to the Court of Instruction number 53 of Madrid in which they claim that Real Madrid held concerts in the stadium this summer after having presented a license dating back to 2001 that has now expired.

But the Department of Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility of Madrid City Council has said that since the inauguration of the stadium until now “different operating licenses have been granted after the successive works and extensions that have been carried out.”

Real Madrid earlier this year cancelled or rescheduled all concerts at its Santiago Bernabéu stadium until at least 2025 because of noise complaints.

The club has been working to comply with council noise regulations after local residents complained that a series of loud, late gigs had turned the arena into a “torture-drome”.

Real Madrid CF is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid (Spain). The club competes in LaLiga, the top tier of Spanish football.

The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a football stadium in Madrid, Spain. With a seating capacity of 85,000, the stadium has the second-largest seating capacity for a football stadium in Spain. It has been the home stadium of Real Madrid since its completion in 1947.

The council said the last operating license that the Madrid stadium had is from August 10, 2017. Subsequently, municipal sources point out, different works have been carried out for the remodelling of the stadium with different urban planning licenses.

The operating license of 2017 remains in force as these do not expire. Once works are completed, a new operating license is granted, which includes the previous reforms and the most recent ones carried out.

In the document submitted to the court and to which ABC has had access, the residents accuse the concert promoter of presenting the Community of Madrid with a license from 23 years ago so that they would be granted the necessary authorizations to be able to hold concerts in the stadium.

This appeal was presented to the same court that received the complaint against the company Real Madrid Estadio and club General Manager José Ángel Sánchez Periáñez, for an environmental crime after exceeding the noise limits allowed according to the legislation. They have been summoned to testify on October 24.

The association demanded from the Community of Madrid a copy of the operating licenses of the stadium provided by the promoters, verifying that this same document was “a decree granting the operating license of the stadium from 2001.”

The residents also point out that, by presenting this license, the Community of Madrid is being “deceived”, “which has granted the permits with the false belief that the document presented accredited the existence of a valid operating license.”

For its part, the club presided over by Florentino Pérez issued an official statement saying “that it is absolutely false” that it carries out or has carried out its sporting activity under an expired license, nor is it true that this license “has been used by third parties in a deceptive manner before any public administration.”

Real Madrid also insists that the concerts “that have been held in the stadium do not require the granting of a municipal license,” but rather an authorization from the Community of Madrid, which they have had at all events.

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