Sport & EU Competition Law: Discussing Latest Cases. Ben Van Rompuy, Helene Andersson, Stijn Huijts

Ben Van Rompuy, Assistant Professor of EU Competition Law at Leiden University
Helene Andersson, Counsel, LL.D, Delphi
Stijn Huijts, Partner at Geradin Partners
C-333/21 - European Superleague Company; C-680/21 - Royal Antwerp Football Club; C-124/21 P International Skating Union v Commission – these three recent sports-related judgments of the CJEU answering a number of questions referred by national courts within the preliminary reference procedure have been already called a new chapter in the uneasy, complex and so thought-provoking relationships between EU – and indeed any public – order and organisation of professional sports. There are several important trajectories of their further coexistence, and there are many areas of law and policy affected by the judgments. These cases serve a very good example of being a true legal labyrinth.
To help to unravel the most important aspects of these juristic, economic and policy conundrums, I met with three excellent experts in the area of competition law & sports (and beyond) – Stijn Huijts, Helene Andersson and Ben Van Rompuy. We had a very productive, informative and amicable panel, allowing us to look at many aspects of the judgments. Of course, the panellists summarised each of the three cases as a matter of reminder to all of us.
Then we’ve addressed inter alia the following issues:
– the autonomy/sovereignty of sports governing bodies: what is at stake?
– the clash between the CJEU and Court of Arbitration for Sport
– alternative professional leagues and competitions
– new dynamics: UK Government proposes a new independent football regulator – how divergent the issues relevant to sports governing bodies are? Is there a common denominator? (to use very helpful Ben’s taxonomy of the issues: regulation of individual sporting conduct (anti-doping, match-fixing); regulation of employment (transfer system, salary caps); regulation of club management (financial fair play, multiple ownership, licensing); regulation of economic relationship between sports actors and other actors (agents, sponsors); commercial activities (sale of media rights, tickets, sponsorship, IP licensing, merchandising…))
We have also examined
– how and when to give weight to sports-specific considerations
– the  role of Article 165 TFEU
– delineation of ‘purely sporting’: is AG Rantos too generous, is CJEU too restrictive in their reading of Art 165 TFEU?
– the concept of “cross-cutting provisions” having general application… And of course, I asked all three colleagues about what would they have to propose as a recommendation for students
– and they got quite a few really good points on this too. I hope this conversation would useful for those interested in this really intriguing topic (I got fascinated by it when writing my first doctoral thesis (on competition law and sports media rights more than 20 years ago (OMG) at Charles University in Prague Law School)). It keeps inspiring my research curiosity ever since.

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The Digital Markets Research Hub is an independent academic initiative aiming at scrutinising the functioning of competition/regulation in digital markets. We host one-to-one interviews with leading policymakers, regulators and practitioners. We also organise online mini-workshops inviting high-profile experts and academics in various fields of digital competition law & policy to discuss the most vibrant issues of the ongoing regulatory reforms in digital markets. While having our clear normative stand on the matters discussed within the hub, we value different views and invite relevant stakeholders and thinkers representing the whole spectrum of reasonable positions on how to regulate competition in digital markets. All our materials are available at YouTube channel, which you are very welcome to subscribe to. The panel is organised & conducted by Prof. Oles Andriychuk, Newcastle Law School, UK