The fate of the European Super League could be decided Thursday in the European Court of Justice, when a ruling is expected in the breakaway league’s case against UEFA, European soccer’s governing body.
Fifteen Grand Chamber judges will decide whether UEFA and FIFA acted lawfully in blocking the formation of the Super League in 2021 and trying to sanction the clubs involved.
Whichever way the decision goes, it could have broad impacts on club soccer across the world, as the world’s richest teams seek ways to keep more of the revenue they generate.
What is the Super League?
On April 18, 2021, the soccer world was shaken by news that 12 of the world’s top clubs (Spain’s Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid; Premier League’s Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur; and Italy’s AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus) intended to break away from UEFA to create their own competition.
The announcement encountered widespread opposition, including from FIFA and UEFA. It took only 48 hours for the six Premier League clubs to pull out of the proposed project and for the arrangement to collapse.
In the aftermath, UEFA and FIFA attempted to take disciplinary action against the league’s founding backers—F.C. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus—after they refused to drop the league project. The discipline included potential two-year bans from European competitions and financial penalties.
The authority of UEFA and FIFA to impose such punishments became a source of the current legal dispute.
The clubs took the case to the 17th Mercantile Court of Madrid, which issued an injunction preventing UEFA and FIFA from taking any action against the clubs or their players. The court reasoned these ruling bodies lacked the necessary authorizing power under competition law to punish founding members of the Super League for attempting to form their own group.
The case advanced to the Court of Justice of the European Union and was heard in Luxembourg in July 2022. Last December, Advocate General Athanasios Rantos of the European Court of Justice issued an opinion saying that while teams can form their own competing leagues, UEFA and FIFA can exclude those new rivals from playing in UEFA and FIFA competitions.
Ramos explained there’s nothing stopping the creation of a league “outside the UEFA and FIFA ecosystem,” adding one could be created “freely and without UEFA’s intervention.” To that end, Ramos underscored that “neither FIFA nor UEFA is a public entity or has any special or exclusive right” over pro soccer in international or European competitions. Ramos also reasoned that UEFA and FIFA have a right to determine their own membership rules. This means while UEFA and FIFA can prevent a “super league” from being part of their membership organizations, they can’t prevent the creation of such a league outside of their organizations.
Ramos’ reasoning is consistent with rulings on other sports membership organizations. Courts have repeatedly found that membership organizations can punish members who join or form rival organizations.
In the U.S., courts have sided with professional tennis, rodeo and—most recently via the PGA Tour-LIV Golf litigation—golf leagues to exclude members of rival leagues from competition. This is true even when the association is depicted as having monopoly power. Also, earlier this year, a U.K. arbitration panel held that the D.P. World Tour (European Tour) could punish golfers who breach their contractual obligations to play for LIV. In essence, a player or team is free to start their own association, but it should not expect immunity from their prior association taking remedial action.
Whether the 15 Grand Chamber Justices agree with Rantos and that line of thinking remains to be seen. Advocates general like Rantos play an advisory role in the legal process. As explained in the Gonzaga Journal of International Law, their opinions are accorded “influential” but “non-binding” status on the Court of Justice of the European Union. Ramos’ opinion ups the odds that UEFA and FIFA will win Thursday’s decision but doesn’t guarantee their victory.
Jörg von Appen, a partner at German firm BluePort Legal, which specializes in sports law, thinks the door is still open for the Super League plaintiffs. “He [Rantos] basically said, ‘Ban the Super League,’ using Article 165 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is the basis for the European sports model,” von Appen said on a phone call. “I think legally speaking he’s wrong about that. Because at the end of the day, you just have to see whether this whole issue is anti-competitive or not.”
The Super League teams insist UEFA and FIFA wield too much power and influence and intimidate potential rivals from attempting to compete, and should not have the authority to punish the upstart league.
The Super League’s failure nonetheless spurred changes in UEFA. Last year, UEFA’s executive committee reformed the current Champions League model, increasing the number of clubs in the tournament’s opening stages to 36 from 32, beginning with the 2024-25 season. Under a new format, teams will play eight matches in what will be called the league phase (replacing the current group stage). UEFA says this will allow “clubs to test themselves against a wider range of opponents and raises the prospect for fans of seeing the top teams go head-to-head more often and earlier in the competition.”
Earlier this year, the organization also announced it will distribute a greater share of revenue to clubs that fail to qualify for UEFA’s competitions starting next year. The change will result in 308 million euros ($330.02 million) being shared among non-participating clubs, up from the current 175 million euros, to “bolster long-term stability and sustainable growth in European club football,” the governing body said in a statement.
Von Appen, who supports the Super League teams’ position, believes UEFA’s new format “is a key reaction to the Super League.”
Is Super League idea dead if it loses?
According to European law, anyone can form a league or a competition. However, as the governing body of European soccer, UEFA has the right to punish those UEFA members who form independent competitions.
Of the original 12 Super League clubs, only Real Madrid and Barcelona remain in support of the concept. In July, Juventus started the process of withdrawing from the ESL. The exit will depend on authorization from Real Madrid and Barcelona. The two Spanish soccer powerhouses opted out of LaLiga’s CVC investment deal in 2021 and have yet to rejoin the European Club Association (ECA) after their exclusion in 2021. Juventus declined to rejoin the organization, too. Representatives of Real Madrid and Juventus did not respond to Sportico’s request to comment. A Barcelona representative declined to comment for this story.
Last February, A22, a sports marketing firm owned by an American and Franco-Moroccan investor, outlined a new format for the league. This proposal is very different from the original ESL pitch; instead of the biggest clubs in European soccer playing a midweek tournament, A22 wants to expand the Super League to all clubs.
“None of the clubs who initiated this initiative wanted to leave their domestic league. That was not the intention. It was never a breakaway league,” A22 CEO Bernd Reichart said in a video call. “It was always an alternative for the midweek competitions organized and commercialized by UEFA.”
The proposed tournament format is a league owned and directed by member clubs, with different divisions where clubs would keep the revenue and not share it with the governing body. But UEFA could still exercise its right to penalize the members of the new league by banning them from national and international competitions it organizes.
“I don’t understand why domestically clubs can organize themselves, whereas on the European level, it can only be done by the very same body who is a regulator and commercial operator at the same time,” Reichart said. UEFA did not respond to Sportico‘s request to comment.
“The first thing I will look at on Thursday morning is if the court allows clubs to pursue their entrepreneurial freedom without the threat of sanctions,” Reichart continued. “Can they have the freedom to create solutions to their own problems in an open forum with their peers? That’s important. They cannot do it now, and it would make a huge difference if they would be allowed to do so in the future.”
(This story has been updated to indicate Barcelona declined to comment.)