October 22 – The isolation of Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona over their belligerent insistence on trying to keep their Super League ambitions alive in the European courts, was highlighted again this week.
Their own countries of Italy and Spain were among 16 of the 27 European Member states who filed written submissions against the league to the court in Luxembourg by Monday’s deadline, reported AP.
The Luxembourg court will rule on whether UEFA and FIFA have a monopoly control of the sport. The case was referred to the court by a judge in Madrid. A public hearing is expected in the first half of next year with a ruling likely to take several more months.
In the meantime, while the case is being decided, UEFA withdrew ‘settlement’ agreements for the nine clubs who withdrew from the Super League. Those agreements included fines and further sanctions if they joined any new or similar breakaway league project in the future.
UEFA also annulled proposed sanctions against Juve, Real Madrid and Barca who had refused to withdraw from the Super League project but said that disciplinary action could be revived depending on the judgment from the EU court in Luxembourg.
The EU has been a strong advocate for protecting the European sports model that exempts football from competition law by protecting the role elite and grassroots sport play in European society on the basis that they are part of the same pyramid of structured competition funding and hence open to all member of society.
The European Super League project that was so spectacularly washed away by a tsunami of fan opposition was the exact opposite of that basic concept of social inclusion and opportunity.
While only the three breakaway clubs refused to back away from the Super League, all of the 12 original Super League members filed legal suits at the same time in the Madrid commercial court against UEFA and FIFA.
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