Let us remember, to begin with, that on July 11 and 12, the first hearing was held before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) between the Super League and UEFA and FIFA (with other co-participants) in order to to check whether they use and abuse a dominant position in the professional football market in the European Union.
Six preliminary questions were put to the CJEU and, truth be told, the questions seem to me, with all due respect, somewhat tricky, because what is really at issue here is whether, as the clubs want, it would be possible to compete in the national championships and also being in a Super League.
That is what UEFA does not admit, because when you compete and sign up for a national league it is so that, if you qualify for it, you can then do so in UEFA's own continental competitions. That is the crux of the matter and it is not asked…
Before the hearing and in a preventive way, UEFA has created, this past June, some "authorization rules for the regulation of international club competitions". These rules are clearly written to try to control any competition that wants to be created, if only from now on.
I wonder if such regulations were necessary, because I have always thought that the Super League was legal, as long as I didn't want to have everything. In other words, believe it, outside of UEFA, but don't try to compete in your own countries, which have an obligation in their leagues to attend UEFA competitions. It's that easy. Or one thing or another.
UEFA intends, with these rules, to control what some so-called "organizers" can create, outside their competitions, and handles criteria to approve and, where appropriate, sanction the super league.
And what can they breach? What is created with these "rules" is that any "organizer" that intends to carry out a competition in UEFA territory will have to request its approval from its Executive Committee and that, if anyone breaks these regulations, they will be sanctioned, from fines to expulsion. of UEFA competitions. That is to say, what was intended before but that could not be applied and that, from now on, it will be possible.
And, to pass the exam, the organizer must meet various requirements that range from administrative and financial, to sports-technical, through ethical (sic) and strictly sports, which will be the ones that prevent them from being classified without go through some previous competitions. In short, to prevent the organizers from being able to “choose” the components of that competition.
They seem to be ad hoc rules to avoid the Super League or, where appropriate, to be able to sanction the clubs that sign up for it. However, with this UEFA has tried to protect itself, although, in my opinion, it did not have to do so, since, as I say, each one is free to associate in one place or another, which the members of the Super League did not want They intended to sit at all the tables.
And what has happened in the two days of hearing? Well, precisely that, that the lawyers of the Super League have accused UEFA and FIFA of monopolists, infringing those articles 101 and 102, and, on the other hand, it has been reproached that the vision of the clubs was contrary to the pyramid of sport, and to the vision of the European Union itself of this with promotions and relegations, primacy of sporting achievements and that it was not a more or less closed league.
However, what can be said is that the teams that make up the Super League want to be everywhere, arguing that they are subject to the supreme power of UEFA and FIFA. But nobody, in my opinion, prevents them from creating their own competition, but they will not be able to form part of an internal league, which entails the obligation to compete in UEFA's continental formats and, furthermore, to not comply with said obligation, continue in those national leagues.
In short, one cannot want to have everything: the Super League is not illegal, but then, that its organizers and members leave the entities that promote other types of competition and that, as we have said, entail obligations that they could not fulfill the superliggueros for being contrary to the Superliga itself...
In my opinion, they will have to choose and no one forces anyone to be in a national competition, and if they don't want to sign up for the Spanish League or the Italian League, then good luck to them. Now, being in all the places, contradicting the regulations, cannot or should not be possible.
