It is pretty rare for judgments of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) regarding the freedom of movement for workers and competition rules to grab news headlines. However, the ECJ’s ruling in C-650/22 (“Diarra”) has certainly kick-started global debate on the restrictions inherent in football’s transfer system, and whether they are compliant with wider legal requirements. The ECJ on 4 October 2024 clarified that certain of FIFA’s transfer rules which (in effect) disincentivised unilateral termination of a player’s contract (by club or player) without “just cause” are incompatible with Article 45 and 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”), that is, the rules on the freedom of movement for workers and the prohibition on anti-competitive no-poach agreements within the EU. Subject to the Belgian Court of Appeal ruling that these rules are capable of objective justification (which is unlikely in light of the ECJ’s judgment), these rules are void in law across the EU. The effects of the Diarra judgment could be profound, seemingly opening the door for players to unilaterally terminate their contracts and sign for competing clubs. However, the ECJ does hold open the prospect for clubs to receive protection from traditional mechanisms of contract law, for instance the right to receive compensation in the event of breach of contract by one of its players. The case also serves as a reminder that the competition aspects of labour markets, and in particular no-poach agreements, are increasingly on the radar of courts and competition authorities around the world (particularly in the UK and the US), and may encourage those authorities yet to kick off investigations to do so. See our recent assessment of the application of competition law to no-poach agreements. 

The European Union’s Court of Justice (“ECJ”) went into the 2023 winter break in style, publishing a hat-trick of judgments (hereafter referred to as SuperLeague, ISU, and Royal Antwerp) regarding the application of competition law to the governance of sport. These judgments are an El Classico of sorts for sports and competition law aficionados, with far reaching implications for rule-makers (such as FIFA, UEFA, the ISU, national sports associations and other sports governing bodies), players, clubs, fans, and other sectors more generally. This article details the factual background of the judgments, before assessing in turn, key implications in terms of sports governance and competition law. The judgments (ISU and SuperLeague in particular) strongly affirm the application of competition law to the governance of sports, and may subsequently result in many sports governing bodies revisiting the content and application of their rules.  

The ECJ’s recent preliminary ruling in C-211/22 - Super Bock Bebidas (“Super Bock”) is significant for businesses and competition authorities. It is well-established that categorisation of conduct as a ‘by object’ infringement of Article 101(1) TFEU must be considered by reference to whether, on a case-by-case basis, the agreement presents a sufficient degree of harm to competition. Super Bock is the first occasion on which the ECJ has applied this principle to vertical agreements fixing minimum resale prices (aka resale price maintenance, or “RPM”). In applying established principles to the vertical RPM setting, the ECJ’s analysis in Super Bock is unsurprising. However, it does formally reverse the Court’s earlier judgment in C-243/83 - SA Binon, and in doing so continues the ECJ’s retreat from assessing ‘by object’ infringements as according to their form, rather than their substance, under Article 101 TFEU. In this article we assess the impact of Super Bock, with analysis of its impact for businesses and competition authorities.