Fifa and Uefa acted unlawfully when they threatened to ban clubs and players joining breakaway competitions like the European Super League (ESL), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.
The EU’s top court said today (Thursday) that the governing bodies of world and European football, respectively, abused their dominant position by forbidding clubs outright to compete in a ESL, but the ECJ said that does not mean a revised Super League will get approval.
An initial report released a year ago by the ECJ said the rules of Fifa and Uefa were “compatible with EU competition law”, but the ESL and its backers, A22 Sports Management, had long claimed the two organisations were breaking competition law.
As expected, all parties have claimed some kind of victory from today’s verdict, on the face of it seen as a blow to the authority of Fifa and Uefa.
However, the court said: “That does not mean that a competition such as the Super League project must necessarily be approved. The court, having been asked generally about the Fifa and Uefa rules, does not rule on that specific project in its judgment.”
In a bullish statement, A22 chief executive Bernd Reichart said: “We have won the right to compete. The Uefa-monopoly is over. Football is free. Clubs are now free from the threat of sanction and free to determine their own futures.”
The ECJ report said that when new competitions are “potentially entering the market” Fifa and Uefa must ensure their powers are “transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate”, adding: “However, the powers of Fifa and Uefa are not subject to any such criteria. Fifa and Uefa are, therefore, abusing a dominant position.
“Moreover, given their arbitrary nature, their rules on approval, control and sanctions must be held to be unjustified restrictions on the freedom to provide services.”
Uefa said the ECJ’s ruling “does not signify an endorsement or validation of the so-called ‘super league’” and merely only serves to underscore “a pre-existing shortfall within Uefa’s pre-authorisation framework”, which the governing body corrected in June 2022.
It added: “Uefa is confident in the robustness of its new rules, and specifically that they comply with all relevant European laws and regulations.”
In parallel, the ECJ observed that the Fifa and Uefa rules relating to the “exploitation of media rights” are harmful to European football clubs, all companies operating in media markets and consumers and television viewers “by preventing them from enjoying new and potentially innovative or interesting competitions”.
The ESL project first emerged in April 2021 with a proposal put forward by 12 leading clubs that centred on a closed structure with no promotion or relegation. Widespread backlash from fans and politicians led to nine of the clubs pulling out of the proposals within days. These were Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Atlético Madrid, AC Milan and Inter Milan.
Juventus indicated its plan to leave the ESL in June of this year, but Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid remain interested in pursuing the venture.
A22 quick to unveil plans
Following today’s ruling, A22 announced its newest proposal for a men’s and women’s ESL that would be streamed for free around the world on a newly-launched, direct-to-consumer platform called ‘Unify’.
The men’s ESL would feature 64 teams in three tiers: the Star League and Gold League comprising 16 teams each, and the Blue League with 32 teams. There would be no permanent members, with participation based on sporting merit.
There would be annual promotion and relegation between leagues, with promotion into the third-tier Blue League
based upon domestic league performance.
Clubs in the ESL would play home-and-away matches in groups of eight resulting in a minimum of 14 matches per
year, with a knockout stage at season-end to determine both the champions of each league and clubs
to be promoted.
A22 said midweek matches would not interfere with domestic league calendars, while there would be “strong financial sustainability rules and transparent enforcement processes” put in place.
The women’s ESL would feature the same key elements as the men’s, albeit there would only be the Star and Gold Leagues, not a third tier.
A22 said revenues during the first three years of the new competition will be “guaranteed at a level beyond that expected in the next cycle”, while solidarity payments would be 8 per cent of ESL revenues with a minimum payment of €400m ($439m), “exceeding by more than double the amount distributed from the current pan-European competition”.
The streaming platform, Unify, would generate income from advertising, premium subscriptions, distribution deals, interactive services and sponsors, A22 said.
Reichart, a former CEO of German free-to-air commercial broadcaster RTL, said: “The current fan experience with multiple TV subscriptions is becoming prohibitively expensive and needs fresh thinking. Other entertainment options are continuously improving their content offerings and football needs innovative ideas especially to attract young fans. We want to take this powerful and amazing competition to fans around the world in a way that provides easy access to the best matches and an unrivalled, cutting-edge fan experience.”
ECJ sits on the fence in Royal Antwerp case
In a separate long-awaited ruling, the ECJ has found that the rules of Uefa and the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) only could be contrary to EU law. The issue had begun when Royal Antwerp took the case to a top Belgian court, only for it to be referred to the ECJ.
Under Uefa regulations, teams competing in its club competitions must include at least eight homegrown players in their 25-man squads. Uefa defines homegrown players as having been trained by their club or by another club in the same national association for at least three years between the ages of 15 and 21.
The RBFA adopted the same eligibility rules in Belgium.
Royal Antwerp, which competed in the group stages of the Uefa Champions League this season, has long argued that the rules hamper a professional club from recruiting and fielding players who do not meet the requirement of local or national roots. It believed that the rules reduce opportunities for some players to be recruited and selected by clubs.
In an initial opinion released earlier this year, the ECJ’s Advocate General Maciej Szpunar stated that Uefa’s rules on home-grown players were “partially incompatible” with EU rules.
Now, the ECJ has stated that rules on home-grown players “could have as their object or effect the restriction of the possibility for clubs to compete with each other by recruiting talented players, regardless of where they were trained”.
However, the ECJ said it will leave it for the top national court to “determine whether those rules restrict competition as a result of their very object or because of their actual or potential effects. If that proves to be the case, it will nevertheless remain possible for Uefa and the RBFA to demonstrate that those rules may be justified under the conditions recalled by the Court in its judgment”.
Regarding the free movement of workers, the ECJ stated that the rules as they are “may give rise to indirect
discrimination, based on nationality, against players coming from other member states”.
Once again, however, it said it “remains possible for Uefa and the RBFA to demonstrate that those rules nevertheless encourage recruitment and training, and that they are proportionate to that objective”.