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Amid the thousands of words in the European Court of Justice ruling, as well as those in the immediate relaunch of the European Super League, the only ones that really matter are whether the project can go ahead.
The answer is that it remains complicated, and all advantage still lies with Uefa, as well as sporting governing bodies generally. The Super League is still subject to Uefa’s authorisation rules and procedures, those rules just have to be more transparent.
The end result of all of this was that Uefa have to amend and update their rules on the pre-authorisation of new competitions, and make them compliant with European Union law. Uefa was rebuked for the procedure of its laws rather than the substance. The old rules, which are in the process of changing, were criticised. That doesn’t mean it was wrong to have such rules.
An irony is that those regulations were already addressed in June 2022. The court, however, could only rule on the situation as it was presented. It was already out of date. The rules just need to be worked on.
“Uefa is confident in the robustness of its new rules, and specifically that they comply with all relevant European laws and regulations,” a statement read.
There is a huge irony that key figures in the Super League had been privy to the progress of this before the launch of the project in April 2021, particularly with former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli on the Uefa Executive Committee. They never inquired about it. “The joined-up thinking,” in the words of one prominent European executive not involved on either side, “is never there”.
The unity of European football has held for now, and perhaps some time, though.
This ruling has essentially protected the powers of Uefa and Fifa. They can still organise their own competitions. There is no requirement to break up.
The European Super Laegue is attempted to relaunch
That is maybe the key point. Figures behind the Super League had been supremely confident that the court would call for some form of separation and that this would be their way in. It was described as more than a 99% chance. This hasn’t happened.
Uefa gets to keep its regulatory monopoly.
There were even indications within the judgement that the court felt Uefa was right to sanction the Super League, and it did specifically say that the verdict does not mean such a “project must necessarily be approved”. The court wasn’t asked to rule on that.
Perhaps the key paragraph in the entire judgement is 144. It is in purest legalese, but it essentially recognises that it is legitimate for sporting bodies like Fifa and Uefa to protect sporting merit, something the original Super League tried to undermine with its closed-shop proposal benefitting member clubs.
The ruling says: “Those various specific characteristics support a finding that it is legitimate to subject the organisation and conduct of international professional football competitions to common rules intended to guarantee the homogeneity and coordination of those competitions within an overall match calendar as well as, more broadly, to promote, in a suitable and effective manner, the holding of sporting competitions based on equal opportunities and merit. It is also legitimate to ensure compliance with those common rules through rules such as those put in place by Fifa and Uefa on prior approval of those competitions and the participation of clubs and players therein.”
Just like that paragraph, this story seems endless. It isn’t completely over yet. The Super League’s attempt to immediately declare victory and relaunch its project with more detail was testament to that.
That is where there are fissures, too. The Super League has been gathering more support because it has been playing into absolutely fair complaints that power in the current Champions League is far too concentrated. Most of the wealth is in a few pockets of western Europe. Clubs basically now have to be from a big city in a big country to have any chance of continental success and even that is being threatened by the Premier League. It is obviously appealing for those outside to break that up, even if it would be misguided to put the power of European football into the hands of the very biggest clubs, as the Super League proposes.
Real Madrid are at the heart of Super League plans
That in turn reflects fundamental problems with football governance, and how the executive presidential structure of Uefa and Fifa just doesn’t work in the modern game. If the European Union is interested in the protection of sport, this should be the next step it looks at. The structure has only served the big clubs.
On that, it was similarly instructive that the ruling addressed redistribution of Champions League prize money, which should hopefully have the effect of further spreading wealth to those outside the elite. A simultaneous ruling on homegrown players meanwhile declared Uefa’s rules unlawful. That essentially means players from the same national federation aren’t considered academy graduates. While the legalities of this need to now be sorted, it is likely to mean clubs need to bring through more academy-produced players.
Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez could still take Uefa’s licensing rules to the Spanish courts. These are among the many forces shaping the game for the future, and it may not look like this in a decade.
For the moment, however, the structure has held.
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