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Plans for a breakaway European Super League bringing together some of the continent’s elite clubs got a setback after an adviser to the European Union’s top court said the sport’s main governing bodies didn’t unfairly thwart the project.
The European Super League “is free to set up its own independent football competition,” but then teams can’t “in parallel with the creation of such a competition, continue to participate in the football competitions organized by FIFA and UEFA without the prior authorization of those federations,” according to Athanasios Rantos, an advocate general of the EU Court of Justice.
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The opinion will guide the court’s ruling, which will come in a few months.
Fans protested across Europe
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The Super League project, which initially involved six teams from England, three from Italy and three from Spain, crumbled last year, just days after its creation, following a political and public uproar, as well as threats from World Cup organizer FIFA and European counterpart UEFA that any player or club taking part would be expelled from their competitions.
The company behind the rebel league, set up under Spanish law, said the threats were an “insurmountable barrier” to the new tournament and broke antitrust law.
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The football fight is being handled by the same judges as in a dispute involving the International Skating Union, where the advocate general on Thursday in a separate opinion said the court should send it back for reexamination to a lower EU tribunal.
In that case, the Union is challenging the European Commission’s findings that its threat to ban a pair of Dutch speed skaters from the Winter Olympics for taking part in unauthorized events, violated antitrust rules.
The cases are: C-333/21 European Super league Company, C-124/21 P International Skating Union v. Commission.
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