Historic turn in the world of football. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) considered that FIFA and UEFA rules on the prior authorization of club football competitions, such as the Super League, violate Union Law. The highest administrative instance of the EU pointed out that UEFA and FIFA abused their “dominant position” in their actions against the Super League and consider that “their rules that prohibit clubs and players from participating in it, with penalty of sanctions, are illegal.” The ruling of the CJEU is mandatory and there is no appeal against it.
In the offices of A22, the organizing company of the Super League, they celebrated the victory. “The clubs can and must govern their future from now on. “UEFA does not have exclusivity in the world of football,” they pointed out to this newspaper. For his part, Bernd Reichart, general director of A22, seemed victorious: “We have won the right to compete. The UEFA monopoly has ended. Football is free. Now the clubs will no longer suffer threats and sanctions. They are free of decide their own future. For fans: we are going to broadcast all Super League matches for free. For clubs: club income and payments in solidarity with football are guaranteed.” he pointed out.
For its part, Barça, which together with Real Madrid has led the Super League ship, also hoped that the CJEU ruling would be favorable to its creation. Barcelona president Joan Laporta is in favor of reaching an agreement with UEFA and mediating with the League the launch of the Super League in two years. On the other hand, Florentino Pérez’s Real Madrid wants to start the competition without having the approval of UEFA. In the entire framework it also remains to be seen how relations with LaLiga turn out. Although the treatment has improved, FC Barcelona blames the body chaired by Javier Tebas for much of its economic problems and, together with Real Madrid, has always considered that the Super League will allow the clubs to start on equal terms economically and sportingly.
It should be taken into account that the ruling clarifies that “a competition like that of the Super League project should not necessarily be authorized” because the six preliminary questions posed by the commercial judge of Madrid, Manuel Ruiz de Lara, are generic. However, , that’s what UEFA is holding on to. The body that governs European football indicated that it “takes note” of the ruling on the Super League, but stressed that the ruling “does not mean a concrete endorsement or validation” of that competition but rather “underlines a pre-existing deficit within the UEFA prior authorization framework, a technical aspect that was already recognized and addressed in June 2022.” The Court’s ruling does say that the rules with which the competition was banned violate community law.
The Super League’s ruling is in line with the Bosman Law, by which players belonging to the European Union do not have foreign status in any of the countries that comprise it. That rule opened borders and was a huge boost for the beautiful sport in Europe. In A22 they already expected this change of course. Although the previous report of the EU attorney general, the Greek Athanasios Rantos, issued in December 2022, was favorable to UEFA, which it legitimized to organize and authorize European competitions, the Super League maintained to date that the opinion of the magistrate, who usually agrees 80 percent of the time with the ruling of the CJEU when it comes to obvious issues, did not have to be the same. The delay in the decision, which was initially supposed to arrive in the spring, also made the creators of the Super League think that the ‘no’ to free European sporting competition was not as clear as it seemed. Throughout this time they have maintained that convincing 15 judges is not the same as convincing one.
Since its creation was announced in April 2021, and with the entry of A22, the company that redesigned the idea, in November of the same year, the Super League has corrected some of the most conflictive points of its initial approach that generated many doubts. . Also due to the popular rejection that was staged in the streets of England and that brought with it the supposed departure of the six founding English clubs: Manchester City, Manchester United FC, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Little by little, the other clubs that had signed the agreement joined this position: AC Milan, Atlético de Madrid, Inter Milan and Juventus.
The organization of the Super League absorbed all the reluctance. Now the format is different. A competition of 20 clubs with 15 of them always being permanent was ruled out in order to move on to another format in which the best in Europe have a place according to their sporting merit without there being permanent members.
The Super League then becomes an open competition with up to three divisions made up of 64 clubs. The classification system would be based on their performance in national competitions, thus allowing all clubs access to the competition. In the first two leagues – Star League and the Gold League – there will be 16 clubs in each. While the third, the Blue League will be made up of 32 clubs. Access to the latter will be based on the performance of the national leagues.
The project provides for a minimum of 14 games per club per year in each division and in no case would it mean a renunciation of the national Leagues. Nor would it be played on a weekend since the traditional calendar would be respected so as not to wear out its main asset: the players. In the self-management regulations, which the clubs will decide economically and politically, the participation of an owner at the head of several clubs is expressly prohibited. Likewise, a salary cap is set to control financial fair play and sponsorship contracts are controlled under the premise that everyone must adapt to the market. On an economic level, the organizers defend that the distribution of income will be equitable, always respecting the football pyramid.
There will also be a Women’s Super League with two divisions, the Star League and the Gold League. Each division will have 16 clubs divided into two groups of eight with home and away matches and a minimum of 14 matches per club per year. Three times more will be contributed to the women’s football budget with 400 million compared to UEFA’s 130.
Throughout this time, those responsible for the Super League have held conversations with up to 60 clubs from Germany, Scotland, France, Portugal and the Netherlands, countries that have conveyed their desire to obtain more influence than the current model provides them. “There is more consensus than it seems,” they insisted after the score. After the conversations held, several clubs consulted agree: there is a crisis of attention with matches that are not very important and attractive and it is necessary to seek to be more competitive to get closer to the level of the Premier League. The classic between Barcelona and Real Madrid is one of the lifeblood. The meetings with the clubs have not been able to go much further since article 51 of UEFA defines as “prohibited relations” any conversation, meeting or alliance between the Leagues and the clubs affiliated with UEFA that differ from this without the authorization of UEFA itself. Friendlies cannot be organized or tickets sold without your authorization.
The promoters of the project assume that talking about attractive matches without including Premier League clubs is not coherent, but they trust that, despite the British popular rejection, they will finally be able to count on them now that the judicial panorama has become clearer. They maintain that the first binding 200-page contract signed by the 12 clubs – Milan, Arsenal, Atlético de Madrid, Chelsea, FC Barcelona, ??Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur – remains in force and that no one has jumped ship because they have not paid Sixth Street, the American investment fund that acts as a lender in the project, the million-dollar penalty that would allow them to withdraw from the competition.
The decision of the CJEU leads one to think that this ruling aims to establish the general framework in which European sport and the scope of the role of the federations will be conducted from now on.
