Four days before Christmas, were Real Madrid and FC Barcelona going to open their presents a little early? The question tormented the world of football, suspended by a decision from the European Court of Justice (CJEU). The body responsible for ensuring compliance with European law ruled on Thursday, December 21, in the case of the Super League, a semi-private competition project competing with the Champions League. The CJEU considered that the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and the International Football Federation (FIFA) exercise a monopoly contrary to European law on free competition, agreeing with the promoters of the Super League. A decision that could reshape the future of European and world football.
“The rules of FIFA and UEFA requiring their prior authorization the creation of any project for a new interclub football competition, such as the Super League, and prohibiting clubs and players from participating in it, under penalty sanctions, are illegal”considers the Court in its judgment, to the extent that “ [leurs] powers are not governed by any criteria ensuring their transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate nature. » However, the CJEU has not ruled on the legitimacy of the Super League project.
The Court therefore did not follow the opinion of its general advocateone year earlier. “FIFA rules [la fédération internationale] and UEFA [la fédération européenne] subjecting any new competition to prior authorization are compatible with Union competition law.had considered Athanasios Rantos, on December 15, 2022, considering that UEFA was within its rights when it threatened to sanction the formations at the initiative of the Super League, which had tried to implode continental football in April 2021.
The CJEU’s judgment was scrutinized as rarely for this high court. Like its predecessor, the Court of Justice of the European Communities, whose Bosman judgment in 1995 had reshaped continental football by liberalizing the transfer market, “the future of European football will depend on the answers that the Court provides to issues which are mainly linked to competition law and, incidentally, to fundamental freedoms”considered the Advocate General in his conclusions.
An attempt aborted in less than 48 hours
For a long time, the idea of creating a private league to shake up European football, outside the governance of the authorities “official”, was related to the creature of Loch Ness: we imagined it lurking in the depths, while remaining convinced of its non-existence. But such a competition, semi-closed – that is to say with a certain number of clubs guaranteed to participate regardless of their results at the national level – and coming to trample the flowerbeds of UEFA, was announced with fanfare, on a Sunday evening of April 2021.
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