My sense is that the conflation of regulatory and commercial activities in sports governing bodies is a serious structural problem. It leads to conflicts of interest.

 

Steven Weatherill
Emeritus Jacques Delors Professor of European Law, Oxford University
13^th January 2023

From my perspective as an economist, the European Sports Governance Model has a huge problem, because it has a lot of market power, and it lacks checks and balances to keep this market power in control. We see violations of fair and open competition that we would never accept in any other industry.

Oliver Budzinski
Professor of Economics, Technical University of Ilmenau
13^th January 2023

It is not the role of UEFA [to ensure that the ESM is respected]. Absolutely not. UEFA is a company, a company in dominant position and in fact the Advocate General says that UEFA is in a dominant position. [UEFA] does not protect the European sport model, but its model of European football and this situation is not to ensure the respect of the European sport model.

Romain Bouniol
Vice-Dean, University of Perpignan
13^th January 2023

Change is needed in sports governance. First, FIFA and UEFA need to become more open and transparent. There should be a stricter separation between the regulatory and economic role. The current conflict of interest is untenable. Secondly, important stakeholders should get a greater say in sports governance: players, clubs, federations.

Stefaan van den Bogaert
Vice-Dean, Professor of European Law, Leiden University
13^th January 2023

I am not against legitimate objectives, but I wonder whether UEFA is not revenue maximizing and is not commercializing, so that these legitimate objectives are actually really the driving force of the model that we are seeing.

Oliver Budzinski
Professor of Economics, Technical University of Ilmenau
13^th January 2023

If the opinion of Mr Rantos will be taken over by the Court of Justice, that means this is touching upon democracy, because the new definition now which is described by Mr Rantos has no legal basis at all, because nobody can find it in Art 165. The democracy is talking already since the Bosman case about the European sport model: we did not find the definition yet. And now there is suddenly an Advocate General who describes the definition and takes over the role of the democracy. We have to think about that. And if football is that important, then we have to say that.

Antonius Manders
Member of the European Parliament
13^th January 2023