The EU Court declared the ban on clubs’ participation in the Super League illegal and limited UEFA’s monopoly

The con­fronta­tion, which last­ed sev­er­al years, end­ed with the tri­umphant vic­to­ry of the Super League. The court ruled that UEFA and FIFA were wrong and should not threat­en sanc­tions for the cre­ation of any foot­ball projects.

The Euro­pean Court has declared ille­gal the ban imposed by the Inter­na­tion­al Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion and the Union of Euro­pean Foot­ball Asso­ci­a­tions on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of foot­ball clubs in the Super League. In fact, this means that now any foot­ball projects can be cre­at­ed in Europe with­out the pri­or con­sent of FIFA or UEFA.

UEFA is con­fi­dent that this deci­sion does not mean approval of the Super League, but the tour­na­ment orga­niz­ers are rejoic­ing: “We got the right to com­pete. UEFA’s monop­oly is over. Foot­ball has become free. Clubs are now free from the threat of sanc­tions and can inde­pen­dent­ly deter­mine their future. For fans, we offer free view­ing of all Super League match­es. For clubs — guar­an­teed and joint incomes”.

The Super League filed a law­suit against FIFA and UEFA in the Euro­pean Court

Clubs leav­ing the Super League will pay hun­dreds of mil­lions in fines

UEFA opens case against three Super League clubs

What does this mean?

Until now, it was impos­si­ble to hold a tour­na­ment or cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al league with­out the approval of FIFA or UEFA. In fact, these orga­ni­za­tions decid­ed every­thing on their own, tak­ing advan­tage of their dom­i­nant posi­tion in the mar­ket. Such dif­fi­cul­ties were not liked by many large investors who would like to invest in the devel­op­ment of projects, but did not want to share the prof­its with FIFA or UEFA.

The EU Court’s deci­sion effec­tive­ly lim­its the activ­i­ties of UEFA and FIFA. Now these orga­ni­za­tions do not have the right to impose their will on clubs. Pre­vi­ous­ly, they active­ly threat­ened those who want­ed to take part in such events, but from now on such threats are a vio­la­tion of the laws of the Euro­pean Union.

Where did it all start?

In 2021, 12 Euro­pean clubs announced the cre­ation of the Super League as a coun­ter­weight to the Euro­pean Cups: Span­ish Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atléti­co Madrid, Eng­lish Arse­nal, Liv­er­pool, Man­ches­ter City, Man­ches­ter Unit­ed, Chelsea and Tot­ten­ham, as well as Ital­ian Inter, Milan and Juven­tus.

Imme­di­ate­ly after infor­ma­tion about the orga­ni­za­tion of the super league, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of UEFA and FIFA announced that sanc­tions would be imposed on foot­ball clubs that would take part in the project. This led to almost all clubs leav­ing the Super League, and its orga­niz­ers took UEFA and FIFA to court to chal­lenge pos­si­ble sanc­tions. And today the court sided with them.

Where it leads?

It sounds like foot­ball has become free, but in prac­tice the EU court sided with the Super League, but most of the clubs that were orig­i­nal­ly in the Super League are from the UK. And this coun­try is no longer a mem­ber of the EU, which means FIFA and UEFA can con­tin­ue the pol­i­cy of sanc­tions against Eng­lish clubs, so there is no need to talk about an uncon­di­tion­al vic­to­ry. But the deci­sion is sig­nif­i­cant and will def­i­nite­ly affect foot­ball in the future.