Competition law and breakaway leagues: aligning effective sports governance and competition law

Grant Stirling (Edinburgh Napier University)

Abstract

The paper will discuss two recent decisions of the European Court of Justice on the compatibility of certain rules of sports governing bodies on breakaway leagues/competitions with EU competition law, namely the European Superleague decision and the International Skating Union decision. As well as explaining the main points of the decisions, the paper will analyse where this leaves the relationship of EU competition law on the one hand and professional sport on the other and discuss how sports governance might evolve to ensure a system that is effective from a sporting perspective but that complies and indeed complements principles of EU competition law. (see longer abstract below)

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