By Patrick Legros
On Monday, April 19th, 2021, twelve of Europe’s elite football clubs triggered a figurative earthquake upon the landscape of professional football. The ‘European SuperLeague’ was a de facto coup d’etat against UEFA and perhaps epitomized the unbridled impact of commercialization on the game of football as the dubbed ‘Super Clubs’ sought a greater share of the financial pie. As a student of the game, I was both fascinated and disturbed by this event but ultimately it laid the inspiration for me to write this thesis.
My research involved a thorough examination of the legality of UEFA’s vice grip on the organization of professional football in Europe. In response to the SuperLeague, UEFA moved to secure their position by banning the clubs from participating in UEFA competitions and fining them for breach of the UEFA Statutes. The article of UEFA’s statutes under scrutiny is article 49 which enables UEFA to prohibit any member club from participating in external events that are not sanctioned by UEFA. In other words, this prevented clubs from participating in unsanctioned breakaway leagues which had been rumoured by the games power figures for a long time. As such, I decided to test Article 49 for its compatibility with EU competition law and this thesis provides a simulation of a Commission investigation and decision were it ever to materialize. It must be noted that the CJEU recently heard a preliminary ruling hearing on this matter with a decision expected in late 2022/early 2023.
UEFA is a complex organization to say the least. Unravelling the intricacies of its composition meant that this thesis, and a prospective Commission decision, proved this issue is more complicated than a simplification of “UEFA=monopoly”. In fact, my contention is that a case brought against UEFA would be best brought under the auspices of article 101, rather than the more obvious article 102. In chapter 3, I outline why this is the more strategically sound route for the Commission. Moreover, this thesis details the extensive body of jurisprudence on EU competition and sports law with commentary on the decisions of, inter alia, Bosman, Meca-Medinah, ISU and Wouters.
