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The Super League trial was pending sentencing after the preview hearing was held this Thursday in Court 17 of the Commercial Court of Madrid. The lawyers of the plaintiffs, European Superleague Company SL and A22 Sports Management SL, and of the defendant, UEFA, as well as LaLiga and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), appearing in the case, defended their interpretation of the ruling issued. by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on December 21 in response to the preliminary rulings raised by the Madrid court.
The lawyers of the Super League requested that, after what was ruled by the CJEU, the lawsuit filed be upheld in its entirety by concluding that the high European court confirmed that UEFA and FIFA abused a dominant position and restricted free competition by preventing the creation of the groundbreaking tournament with threats of sanctions for the 12 founding clubs. Furthermore, they described as “unquantifiable” the prejudices caused to their clients by UEFA’s suspension of the project. The latter portends a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by the Super League and A22 against the European body if Judge Sofía Gil agrees with them. What A22’s lawyer did announce was the start of legal actions against LaLiga and its president, Javier Tebas, from what they understand is a “campaign of harassment and denigration that they have developed in recent times against the project of a new European competition.” ”.
The plaintiffs also defended that the project is still alive and that the nine clubs that resigned from it continue to appear in the book of shareholders of the European Superleague Company despite having communicated their resignation from the project. Likewise, the Super League lawyers attributed the failure of their initial project “to a media campaign by UEFA and political support against anyone who supported the founding partners.” “They want to generate the appearance that the international community supports them, as if the political support for those who violate the law exempts them from complying with it,” defended the A22 lawyer, in reference to the contrary statements against the Super League by institutions and European governments. One of the key questions in the process is whether both UEFA and FIFA are entitled to authorize international competitions. The Super League’s lawyers argued that their client could not request authorization because UEFA lacked regulations for this and therefore it was not possible to request authorization. At this point, both UEFA’s lawyers, those of LaLiga and those of the Federation defended the existence of regulations in the FIFA statutes and also a circular from the entity that governs European football. The UEFA lawyer explained that it did not receive any request for authorization from any competition, so it has not limited competition or market access to the Super League. And he added that when the court raised the preliminary questions it did so without listening to both parties and only UEFA’s position was sent to the CJEU.
For UEFA, as well as for LaLiga and the Federation, which have requested the complete dismissal of the claim, the CJEU maintains the legitimacy of the European body to establish an authorization system as long as it meets criteria of transparency, objectivity, proportionality and solidarity. In addition, they also agreed that the initial project of the Super League “collapsed due to the social rejection it generated among both fans and institutions as it was a closed competition in which sporting merit was not taken into account and threatened the model.” European for sport.