Legal battle for the creation of new sporting competitions – only the end of the beginning
In the author’s view, a clear current trend in the sports market is the attempt to create new sporting competitions directly contrary to the interests of current competition providers. The reasons are obvious; the maximising of commercial revenues by creating ‘elite’ leagues populated by the most popular clubs and star athletes, the associated profile-building for relatively recent institutional (in particular, nation-state) investors and the move-away from a traditional, centralised sporting model dominated by a single competition provider.
Over the past year, this trend has been played out in legal arenas before, amongst others, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in European Superleague Company SL1 (ESL) (football) and the International Skating Union2 (ISU) (speed-skating) and in the UK before an arbitral panel in the football agents’ challenge (football agents) against the FIFA Football Agents Regulations3 (FFAR) and an appeal panel in the LIV Tour-related challenge (LIV) against the PGA European Tour4 (golf).
Other global sports are looking on with some unease in the anticipation that they will become the next targets for new, financially backed rival competitions. On the one hand, the status-quo wish to protect their businesses by maintaining, or simply tweaking, the current sporting model. On the other hand, nascent rival competitions seek, in essence, to demonstrate that such protectionism is unlawful as an anti-competitive abuse of a dominant position and void as an unenforceable restraint of trade.
To quote a well-known wartime speech, this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning. This article does not seek to rehearse the facts of the well-publicised recent sports competition law challenges over the last year concerning rival competitions or related restrictions placed on athlete competitors or their representatives. Rather, this article will identify and analyse:
- Legal issues that will likely be battled out in the future
- Arguments that rival competitions will likely deploy
- Arguments that current competitions will likely deploy
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- Tags: CJEU | Competition Law | Dispute Resolution | ESL | FIFA | Football | Football Agents Regulations | Golf | Ice Skating | ISU | LIV | Regulation | UEFA
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Written by
John Mehrzad KC
John Mehrzad KC is a Barrister at Fountain Court Chambers specialising in sports law, employment and commercial disputes, across the fields of litigation, domestic and international arbitration as well as cross-border matters.
He was appointed as a silk after only 12 full years’ practice – the fastest barrister appointee of the 2019 competition. More recently, he was listed in The Lawyer’s “Hot 100 2023”, and he has been described in the legal directories as “exceptional and a true heavyweight in his field” with the recommendation that “if you want to win – you want him on your side before the opposition snaps him up”. He was nominated as ‘Sports Law Silk of the Year’ by The Legal 500 in 2022 and 2023.
