The legal representatives of the Super League defended this Monday before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that UEFA has a "conflict of interest", being both an organizer and a regulator of European football, and assured that their project will be a " alternative to UEFA's monopoly" to innovate and develop the future of this sport.
The CJEU welcomed this Monday the start of the hearing on the Super League lawsuit against UEFA and FIFA for an alleged abuse of a dominant position and for preventing free competition guaranteed by EU treaties by responding with possible sanctions to the announcement, in 2021, of the creation of this alternative competition by 12 of the main European clubs.
The Superliga, which denounced UEFA and FIFA before a Madrid court, kicked off the appearances with its legal representative, the lawyer Miguel Odriozola, asking the European judges to imagine UEFA giving the green light to a tournament that is a competitor of the Champions League, something in his opinion impossible.
"Is it conceivable that an association like UEFA can ban European initiatives that are intended to compete with the Champions League? How is it possible that they try to ban innovative projects that try to improve the current model?" Asked the lawyer, who regretted that the clubs Europeans, "the only ones who invest and risk" in this initiative, do not currently have "the ability to control their destiny".
The representative of the Super League argued that "an authorization system led by a company that is judge and party will always lead to an infringement of competition regulations", and also referred to the "flagrantly anti-competitive" commitment assumed by the club associations and European leagues that no club will ever participate in competitions not organized by UEFA or FIFA.
Odriozola also objected to the fact that UEFA, which he considered a "monopoly entity", could "self-attribute" regulatory capacities in its own market and criticized the sanctions proposed by UEFA, which included the exclusion of participating clubs from competitions such as the League of Champions, manage to "de facto block any alternative competition".
Odriozola also pointed out that UEFA cannot justify its rejection of the project due to "an alleged anti-competitive nature", since it is not up to the body to apply this right and, furthermore, they had expressed their intention to prohibit it "before knowing any aspect relating to the project".
In the event that the competition authorities believe that the Superliga does infringe competition law, added the lawyer, there would then be "the possibility of adapting the project to what is appropriate", according to community legislation.
The representative of the Super League also rejected that his project does not comply with the principle of solidarity and promotion of grassroots football and assured that "it will not be difficult" to improve the figures that he attributed to UEFA, who, he said, only dedicates 48 million euros in solidarity payments to grassroots football, 1.5% of the 3,156 million that enters through club competitions.
"The Super League plans solidarity payments of more than 400 million" and "I would be delighted if these payments were monitored by an independent third party to ensure that they really reach grassroots football, something that does not happen at present," Odriozola said.
The lawyer stressed the responsibility of the participating clubs to "oppose abusive practices" and denounced that UEFA "has rooted out" all the projects that have emerged in recent decades and controlled football "with an iron fist" while other sports have "evolving with the rhythm of the times".
UEFA, for its part, assured that the creation of the Super League would have dealt "a fatal blow" to the European sports model and said that its capacity for prior authorization of this and other alternative projects to current competitions prevents the emergence of "formats, conflicting schedules and standards that would turn European football into anarchy"
After an initial intervention by the Super League, UEFA's legal representative, Donald Slater, considered the project promoted by these clubs (of which there are only three left) a "textbook example of a cartel" and assured that the sanctions that raised against the participating clubs "are necessary to ensure compliance" with the agency's rules.
"These clubs wanted to have it all. They wanted to continue participating in national competitions, but to be exempt from the principles of sporting merit and solidarity that support them. The Super League would have dealt a fatal blow to the European sports model (...) that has made Europe in the best place in the world to play and enjoy football. UEFA is here to defend it," Slater said.
The UEFA lawyer rejected that UEFA's authority to organize and regulate European football is "self-attributed", as the Super League claims, and assured that it is recognized by its 55 member associations, FIFA and the institutions of the Union; He also denied that UEFA takes advantage of its power to authorize other competitions for its own benefit.
"The suggestion that a potential conflict of interest could be resolved solely through the structural separation of UEFA's regulatory and commercial activities is completely unfounded," said Slater, who assured that this dual function "ensures that sport performs more social functions wide".
In this sense, he exemplified that every club that participates in UEFA competitions must have grassroots teams and a development program for grassroots and women's football and have a social responsibility strategy, so "competitions are not mere commercial vehicles, but also social and educational vehicles.
"The idea of a closed league of the richest clubs run by an entity oriented exclusively to obtaining economic benefits is incompatible with the European sporting model and sporting merit," Slater stressed, giving the example of how Real Madrid, which ended up winning the Champions League last season, they started this tournament by losing at the Santiago Bernabéu against the Moldovan team Sheriff Tiraspol with a last minute goal.
In addition, he stressed, allowing this competition would have given rise to "other closed leagues, causing a systemic collapse of the European sports model", which would have been "a disastrous result for football and European society".
Slater concluded by quoting French footballer Eric Cantona to recall that "you don't become a champion without fighting" and stressed that the social function of football "is carried out through open competitions" in which promotion or relegation is determined by sporting merit.
