A court decision could bring the plan for the European Soccer Super League back to life.

A court decision could bring the plan for the European Soccer Super League back to life.

There was a huge failure to make a new league Super League in just 48 hours in 2021.
But on Thursday, Europe’s highest court said that the sport’s governing bodies were “abusing a dominant position” when they threw out the plans for the new league. This has brought the idea back to life.

The Madrid-based company A22, which came up with the original Super League plan, staged a news conference right after the decision to talk about plans for a free-to-stream 64-team, three-division men’s league and a 32-team women’s league.

However, Bernd Reichart, CEO of A22, did not say how much the games would cost or how many teams were in favor of the idea.

The first $4 billion Super League project brought collectively 12 of Europe’s biggest and richest clubs for a game that was mostly closed to the public.

But the plan was announced all of a sudden and without much thought. It would have completely changed the way teams competed in the sport in the continent and the structures that had been in place for over a hundred years.

As a result, most of the teams pulled out, even though there were protests from fans and even the threat of governmental legislation.

Barcelona and Real Madrid, two of the biggest clubs in Spain, stayed committed to the breakaway project even after eight other clubs quickly pulled out: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, and Internazionale and AC Milan from Italy; Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur from England. One more partner, Juventus of Italy, finally quit as well.

The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that the rules for making new games that were controlled by FIFA, the governing body of soccer around the world, and UEFA, the governing body of soccer in Europe, were not “transparent, objective, nondiscriminatory, and proportionate.”

Jade-Alexandra Fearns, an antitrust and competition lawyer at Paul Hastings, called the decision “a watershed moment to feed the future in interclub football projects.”

The last people who want a European Super League tried to bring the idea back to life on Thursday, after a landmark court decision made it harder for UEFA and FIFA to stop the biggest soccer clubs from running their own league.

The European Union’s Court of Justice finally made its decision: UEFA and FIFA, which are the governing bodies for soccer in Europe and around the world, were “abusing a dominant position” when they fought against the so-called “Super League” and threatened to punish it in 2021.

An unknown business called A22, which is backed by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, is in charge of planning the league.

They jumped at the chance to reveal their updated plans, which include a new merit-based system for men’s and women’s competitions that would replace the current UEFA Champions League.

It was made clear by the Court of Justice, though: its decision “does not mean that a competition that’s like the Super League project has to be approved.” And that doesn’t mean the Super League will begin up again all of a sudden.

The full 258-paragraph ruling is actually much better for UEFA and FIFA than the first headlines made it sound.

It doesn’t necessarily make them less powerful or discredit their claims to be the best in the sport.

And no amount of legalese could change the fact that the Super League failed so quickly in 2021, only two hours after 12 of the best teams tried to start it.

Nine of those 12 clubs pulled out after getting bad feedback from soccer fans, coaches, players, leaders, and other important people in the sport.

The establishment saw the project as an attempt from wealthy owners and groups that were only interested in making money to gain more power. On Thursday, the elite spoke out against a possible Super League 2.0 for the second time.

A22 said that UEFA had an illegal monopoly in European soccer because it ran tournaments like the Champions League, sold commercial rights to make money off of them, and enforced rules that stopped other groups from making tournaments like the Super League that competed with the Champions League.

In the end, the court said that UEFA had done this in 2021. “The FIFA and UEFA rules that say any fresh interclub football project needs to be approved by them first, like the Super League, and that clubs and players can’t play in those competitions are illegal,” the court said in a news release.

But its full thinking and background were more complicated. The rules were against the law because they weren’t “transparent, objective, nondiscriminatory, and proportionate.” The rules should still be in place, though, as long as they are updated.

It was very important that paragraph 144 of the court’s decision confirmed that UEFA and FIFA can keep and enforce rules that “guarantee the homogeneity and coordination of competitions within an overall match calendar” and rules that “promote… the holding of sporting competitions according to equal opportunities and merit.”