Superlega, hearing on Monday: football against Juve, Real and Barcelona

It is not yet high noon, that will probably arrive between December and January, but we are already counting the ten steps. Him shoulder to shoulder. Except that one of the two contenders will have all of Europe at his side, the other has no allies at the moment. On Monday and Tuesday, almost fifteen months after the famous proclamation of the Super League – before the Uefa Congress in Montreux on 20 April 2021 – all the protagonists of a story that has changed football in any case will meet in Luxembourg before fifteen judges of the EU Court of Justice . There is a hearing on the Superlega case. On the one hand, Uefa, FIFA, the European Parliament, the Commission, the EU Council, the ECA, federations, leagues, players, fans and about twenty governments, including the Italian one. On the other Florentino, Agnelli and Laporta, then Real Madrid, Juve and Barcelona, ​​the three “shareholders” of the tournament who would like to cancel the Champions League and create a new world football system. In reality, not only the Champions League is at stake, but the future of European sport.

UEFA MONOPOLY?

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The aim of the “rebels” is to demonstrate that UEFA enjoys an abuse of a dominant position. And that therefore could no longer have a monopoly in organizing tournaments. An “economic” reading of football useful to justify the birth of a private Super League which, according to Real, Juve and Barcelona, ​​should coexist with the Champions League. Of course, the “rebels” know very well that this is impossible: the Super League would kill the Champions League, because there would be no room for two such competitions. Not only. The “long” calendar would give a lethal blow to the national championships, in which the “big” guests (Juve, Inter and Milan) would field the B teams: and Rome and Naples, to name two other big ones, where would they fit? The Superlega does not have room for everyone. Not to mention the national teams, the World Cups and the Europeans, the last of the three presidents’ thoughts: what space would the matches have outside the activity of the clubs?

EUROPEAN MODEL

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To be honest, it will not be easy to pass the concept of Uefa “monopoly”. In the meantime, it is an organization, that of Nyon, which redistributes almost 100 percent of its revenues (TV rights and sponsors) to federations, clubs and minor football. Furthermore, UEFA does not prevent the birth of other competing tournaments, but legitimately cannot admit that someone participates in external ones that do not respect the “European model”. This is a key passage: sport in Europe is organized on a pyramidal and supportive basis, from the bottom to the top. A system managed by public institutions, FIFA, Uefa, federations, and which provides for the distribution of revenues and the opportunity for everyone, in the sense that there are promotions and relegations and no invitations and a limited number. Finally, there is no conflict of interest, given that the revenues are shared and UEFA does not have a club. The organizers of the Superlega, on the other hand, would participate in the tournament as well as organize it and, after dividing the revenues between them, would distribute the rest to the other participants. For UEFA, the Superlega is an illegal “cartel”.

SPORT SPECIFICITY

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In the courts, you know, common sense is one thing and law quite another. The battle will be played on the specificity of sport, a principle finally recognized by the EU with the 2009 Lisbon Treaty and which would prevent a reading of the issue through the diaphragm of the “free market”. The conditional is a must because specificity has often been an elusive concept and the history of EU sporting rulings is not so clear-cut, starting with the famous Bosman ruling whose effects, however, would not be comparable to those of a ruling in favor of the Super League. However, those were other times, before Lisbon. UEFA then underestimated both the effects of the Bosman and the favorable political scenario. Today the situation is very different. Indeed, all of Europe will line up for the European model on Monday and Tuesday.

ALL FOR UEFA

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The Court’s procedure provides that, on Monday afternoon, the Superlega begins to present its reasons. So it will be up to UEFA, then to FIFA, also for the European model. E22 Sports Management, the commercial arm of the Superlega, will follow. Then all the others in support of UEFA: the Spanish League and Football Association, the Italian government (the observations were signed by state lawyers Stefano Lorenzo Vitale and Danilo Del Gaizo), and another twenty governments, including France and Spain. Never so much participation in a lawsuit before the court, but it is clear that more than football is at stake. Germany sent comments. Great Britain cannot participate, after Brexit, but was the first to oppose it under the pressure of the “no” of the fans. The Commission will also speak, which has taken a strong stand against the “secessionists”. Only one European country is for the Super League, Luxembourg, but it will not participate in the trial.

JUDGMENT AT THE END OF THE YEAR

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The day after, Tuesday 12, the debate: the judges who will be able to ask questions to all the participants. Among the 15 judges is Lucia Serena Rossi, the first Italian to hold the position. Advocate General Rantos, from Greece, will give his (non-binding) opinion to the judges in September / October, before the sentence expected between December 2022 and January 2023. Scenarios? In case of UEFA success, the project would be definitively buried and Real, Juve and Barcelona would only have to back down to avoid the inevitable disqualification of the Nyon Regulations. Otherwise, however, it would not be easy to create a Super League with only three clubs and government constraints that effectively prevent participation in English and German teams. But surely UEFA should update its regulations and the balance of the tournaments would shift in the immediate future decidedly in favor of the big clubs. Monday and Tuesday are the key days to convince the judges. The sentence could come during the World Cup in Qatar: who knows if the last.