European Court to deliver crucial Super League verdict
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Two years on from the collapse of the Super League, only Real Madrid and Barcelona have not stood down from the project.
PHOTO: AFP
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LAUSANNE – The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will deliver a ruling on the breakaway Super League on Dec 21 in a case that has potentially massive consequences for the future of football on the continent.
Depending on what the judges decide, it could be a key victory for European football’s governing body Uefa or it could send shock waves through the sport in the same way the Bosman ruling did in the 1990s.
The case goes back to April 2021, when 12 of Europe’s biggest clubs announced they had signed up to the planned Super League, just before Uefa was set to reveal vast reforms to the Champions League.
The Super League was seen as a direct competitor to Uefa’s flagship competition. But it quickly crumbled in the face of a strong backlash from supporters and football’s governing bodies.
At the same time, Uefa and world governing body Fifa threatened to take disciplinary action against the clubs involved.
Nine of the 12 clubs – including six from the English Premier League – threw in the towel almost immediately, leading to the collapse of the Super League within 48 hours of its launch.
Two years on, only Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona have not stood down from the project, with Italy’s Juventus withdrawing in July.
Yet the threat of a breakaway by Europe’s most powerful clubs continues to hang over football, as they dream of introducing a highly lucrative closed league like those in North American sports, while also continuing to compete in their existing national championships.
It means the European court’s ruling will be crucial, and in October 2022 the promoters of the Super League launched A22 Sports Management, a company with the aim of contesting Uefa’s so-called “monopoly” over the sport on the continent, in the interest of “supporters, clubs and of football”.
Technically, the CJEU will rule on several questions put to it in 2021 by a judge in Madrid, most crucially that of whether Uefa is “abusing its dominant position” in submitting all tournaments in Europe to its authority, and threatening punishments against clubs and players who go against that.
Uefa has cause for optimism, given that CJEU advocate general Athanasios Rantos advised in December that rules laid out by European football’s governing body and Fifa were “compatible” with European Union competition law.
Yet while his opinion is frequently followed, the CJEU is not obliged to do so. And any slight difference in the decision could have a major impact on club football, and more broadly for the regulation of sporting competitions in Europe.
The court will decide whether measures taken against the rebels by Uefa have “legitimate objectives” in mind and are “proportionate”.
The first question seems clear-cut, given that European treaties explicitly protect the “sporting model” on the continent, with competitions that are accessible based on results, with a system of promotion and relegation, and a redistribution of revenues.
Uefa is regularly criticised for the fact that so much of football’s revenues, as well as its best players and its biggest trophies, end up in the hands of a small group of powerful clubs. But the body insists that it has made efforts to open up its competitions, notably with the launch in 2021 of the Europa Conference League, a third-tier European club competition aimed at teams below the elite.
Uefa also recently increased so-called “solidarity” payments, meaning that 10 per cent of the money it brings in from its three club competitions is now distributed to teams who do not make it to the group stages.
However, it remains to be seen what are considered “proportionate” reprisals from Uefa to protect its model, between financial sanctions against clubs, or against players who take part in a rival competition, like the threat of banning them from international tournaments as Fifa and Uefa envisaged in April 2021.
That measure, which could stop many of the world’s best players from taking part in the World Cup, was considered excessive by Rantos in 2022. AFP
