Et one, and two, and three stops! This is not a tribute to the 1998 World Cup final, but rather a desire of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to issue the same day, December 21, 2023its decisions in three separate cases involving the world of sport, the contributions of which must now be measured.
Did the Court of Justice signal the end of the game against the project to create a Super League? of football ?
Announced in 2021, the Football Super League sparked multiple negative reactions. This project, supported by twelve of the most powerful clubs in Europe in both sporting and financial terms, consisted of the creation of a new competition bringing them together, outside the traditional framework of European sports competitions set by the Union of European Associations. football (UEFA).
UEFA then asked the clubs to abandon this project, but also to give up certain revenues from UEFA competitions, which can be seen as a disguised sanction, it being understood that it had also threatened the clubs with new sanctions. if they were to maintain their project.
The European Superleague Company, a company created by these twelve clubs and headquartered in Madrid, then contacted a Spanish judge, believing that UEFA could not sanction these clubs. The Spanish judge referred the question to the CJEU, to find out whether UEFA’s self-proclaimed sanctioning power was consistent with Union competition law. In response, the CJEU considers that UEFA is in a situation of abuse of a dominant position.
Concretely, this means that the power of sanction is not governed by any criteria capable of ensuring its transparency, objectivity, absence of discrimination or proportionality. As it stands, the power of sanction thus exercised does not meet the requirements of competition law to be valid.
As a follow-up, the Court also judges that the rules authorizing the creation of a new competition, given their arbitrary nature, must be qualified as an “unjustified restriction on the freedom to provide a service”. At first glance, this is a hard blow for UEFA in its conflict with the Super League. However, as the judgment does not rule specifically on this project, this match could be subject to overtime.
Has the Court of Justice doubled down on the free movement of athletes after its Bosman case law of 1995?
Since 2005, UEFA has adopted a rule according to which the squads of football clubs registered in the European Cup must include a minimum of “locally trained players” (JFL), that is to say having done the majority of their training within the same league as the club in which they play. Some national federations, such as the Royal Belgian Union of Association Football Societies (URBSFA) have even tightened these rules for clubs participating in the national championship.
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