Spanish MEP Santiago Fisas has claimed that Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich made the initial complaint which has led the European Commission to order seven La Liga clubs to pay back monies received in illegal state aid.
The European Commission has ordered Real Madrid to reimburse the local city authority a total of €18.4 million, saying they had benefitted from an illegal state subsidy in the form of cheap land right by its Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
Madrid have rejected the ruling, saying they plan to appeal while also blaming a Barcelona-based architects firm for providing a misleading valuation to the European authorities.
The same EC judgement also found that Barcelona and five other La Liga clubs must repay money to the Spanish government over various instances of the state providing aid to them.
Speaking about the situation on Cadena Ser, Barcelona-born Fisas, who served as Spain's secretary of state for sport back in the 1990s, said he had heard Bayern had pushed the Commission to investigate and it was strange that other forms of state aid more common in other countries was not being looked at.
"At least from what I've heard, the complaint came from Bayern," the Partido Popular politician said. "It is strange to me that the Commission just punished Spanish clubs and not those, for example, who have free municipal stadiums, as that is also government support."
This is not the first time that some in Spain have raised suspicions about Bayern influencing legal proceedings against a La Liga club.
In January 2016, the Bavarians' president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge denied a rumour that had circulated claiming a secret complaint by his club had led to FIFA investigating Madrid for illegal youth transfers -- and ultimately issuing a one-year ban from transfer activity.