A ruling by the Commercial Court number 17 of Madrid ruled in favor of the Super League in the litigation it maintains against UEFA and FIFA, which it accuses of abusing a dominant position and impeding free competition in the market. The main judge of the Court, Sofía Gil García, partially upheld the lawsuit filed by the European Super League Company SL (ESLC) against UEFA and FIFA “considering that they violate articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ( TFEU).
The ruling also orders FIFA and UEFA to “cease the sanctioned anti-competitive conduct and prohibit its future repetition, in addition to ordering them to immediately remove all the effects of the anti-competitive conduct that occurred before or during the competition.” duration of this procedure, which began on April 18, 2021 when ESLC announced the launch of a new professional football competition project, called Super League, and carried out actions in defense of competition in response to the response of the aforementioned institutions. ”.
Same line as that of the CJEU
The ruling is in line with that of the Court of Justice of the European Union last December and which addressed this same court raising a preliminary ruling prior to holding the hearing. The judge declares “that articles 22, 70, 71, 72 and 73 of the FIFA Statutes, article 6 of the FIFA International Match Regulations and articles 49 and 51 of the UEFA Statutes are incompatible with articles 101 and 102 of the TFEU on “the legal and jurisprudential framework of the competition market in the European Union.”
The content of the ruling also considers that the statements issued by FIFA, UEFA and other entities (including the federations and leagues of England, Italy and Spain, some of whose clubs were part of the project) also infringe articles 101 and 102 of the TFEU. The resolution is not final and an appeal is possible before Section 28 of the Provincial Court of Madrid, the body competent in matters of a commercial nature.
Tebas: “The Super League is not validated”
The reactions to the ruling of the Commercial Court number 17 of Madrid were immediate. The president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas, launched a tweet arguing why the new project is not judicially validated: “Regarding the partial estimation of the European Superleague demand, it is important to clarify that (in the same line as the CJEU) the Judge demands to FIFA and UEFA a transparent and guaranteeing regulation on new competitions, but it does not validate the Super League. What’s more, it is considered an abandoned project in its initial terms. “Neither the sentence is final nor does it provide anything significant new.”
2024-05-27 09:23:14
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