Following the news that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has found that UEFA and FIFA have broken competition laws by blocking the creation of the European Super League (ESL);

Conrad Wiacek, Head of Sport Analysis at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“The ECJ’s ruling that UEFA and FIFA have restricted competition by effectively banning the ESL will embolden the likes of Florentino Perez and Joan Laporta to push on with the Super League plan, despite opposition from fans. While going against the spirit of the sport itself, the likes of Perez dreamt up the ESL as a means of neutering the power of the English Premier League. Unwilling to sacrifice their own dominant market positions domestically to create a more competitive product, which in turn would drive higher media rights fees, the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona will see the ECJ ruling as an opportunity to enrich themselves and further imbalance the soccer ecosystem and create a new commercial reality for the sport.

“This is the third significant intervention the ECJ has made in soccer over the past few decades, starting with the Bosman case and following this with the ruling that media rights must be sold in separate packages to promote competition. While the Bosman ruling impacted players, both the media rights ruling and the ESL judgement will be seen to only be to the detriment of soccer fans. In the case of media rights, fans have been the ultimate losers, being forced to pay more to watch the sport, while the ESL ruling has the potential to fundamentally change and realign the sport.”