Private Equity and Common Ownership in Professional Rugby: Applying the Delivery Hero Standard

By Dr Beverley Williamson

From time to time, the Thicket blog invites guest bloggers to write about a topic that is close to their heart. Geradin Partners is pleased to give the floor to friend of the blog Dr Bev Williamson who is an expert in the application of competition law in the sports industry. The opinions set out in this blog are Dr Williamson’s own views and cannot be attributed to Geradin Partners.

On 2 June 2025, the European Commission announced that it had fined Delivery Hero and Glovo a total of €329 million for engaging in anticompetitive sharing of commercially sensitive labour market information, market sharing and for agreeing not to poach each other’s employees. Delivery Hero and Glovo are two of the largest food delivery companies in Europe, delivering food (prepared by a restaurant or a professional kitchen), grocery and other retail (non-food) products to customers ordering from an app or a website.  Both companies admitted their involvement and agreed to settle the case, reducing the fine paid by 10%. 

The Commission press release confirmed that the anticompetitive conduct was made possible because of Delivery Hero’s minority shareholding in Glovo at the time of the infringement. The Commission found that this non-controlling stake created structural links that enabled the anticompetitive conduct, resulting in a by-object infringement of Article 101 TFEU.

While the case was focused on the platform economy, its implications extend far beyond.  This post explores how the Delivery Hero precedent could apply to professional rugby union, and in particular the ownership structure of Premiership Rugby.

I. Background: Private Equity and Cross-League Ownership

Since 2018, CVC Capital Partners (“CVC”) has acquired minority stakes in multiple elite rugby competitions:

• A 27% stake in Premiership Rugby (England);
• A 28% stake in United Rugby Championship (URC) (Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Italy, South Africa);
• A 14.25% stake in the Six Nations international tournament.

While these competitions may appear distinct in structure and geography, they likely compete directly in multiple dimensions: (i) for players; (ii) sponsorships: (iii) and broadcasting rights.

This may create an incentive to share information about salary strategies (wage costs are often a club’s largest input cost, and have often been blamed for the financial instability that has become a central feature of Premiership rugby), commercial plans or even the scheduling of games.  In addition, revenue sharing from broadcasting rights has become critical to clubs’ financial operations, and thereby, on-field competitiveness.  Whilst a coordinated strategy amongst portfolio-leagues could enhance revenues derived from broadcasting, it would likely amount to a distortion of competition that could, in theory at least, lead to higher prices for consumers when purchasing the relevant broadcaster subscriptions.  Common ownership of leagues can create incentives that may, in turn, raise legitimate questions under EU competition law if acted upon, particularly in light of the Commission’s stance in Delivery Hero. Stakeholders should be aware of these risks to avoid unwittingly committing competition law infringements.

II. The Commission’s Reasoning in Delivery Hero/Glovo

In the Delivery Hero decision,[1] the Commission concluded that the minority shareholding enabled and facilitated Delivery Hero to access and exchange competitively sensitive information with Glovo. Crucially, the Commission found that:

• even non-controlling shareholdings may create structural links that facilitate collusion;
• information sharing about labour markets could constitute a by-object restriction; and
• that, in line with Royal Antwerp Football Club (C-680/21), such exchanges could “soften competition” in the upstream market (workers) and affect downstream pricing and service levels.

The Commission’s conclusion that information sharing about labour markets amounted to a by-object restriction is interesting, and is consistent with the view adopted by the Competition and Markets Authority in its labour market case against sports broadcasters.  Given that labour market cases are a relatively new enforcement priority for competition agencies, the fact the Commission adopted a “by object” approach is revealing about the risks that other industries, such as professional rugby, may face. 

Other mechanisms in place to control player wages include the Premiership salary cap, which places an absolute ceiling on the amount that a club can spend on the totality of its player salaries.  The Premiership salary cap was challenged in 2019 in a case between Premiership Rugby and Saracens. The independent panel concluded that it was a restriction of competition by effect only, and then ultimately as consistent with competition law.  Whilst sport occupies a comparatively privileged position in the eyes of competition enforcement, that position does appear to be narrowing (see e.g. International Skating Union, Royal Antwerp and Superleague, among others), and recent enforcement action may indicate that the decision in the Saracens case as to the operation of the salary cap may not be consistent with this new line of labour market and sports jurisprudence. 

III. Applying Delivery Hero to Rugby: Structure and Incentives

From an antitrust perspective, common ownership in multiple professional rugby leagues raises at least two categories of risk:

Coordination risk:  Where a single investor holds significant minority stakes in competing undertakings and enjoys access to sensitive commercial information, whether through board representation, strategic influence, or regular investor reporting, this raises the risk of tacit or indirect coordination. In the context of professional rugby, CVC’s positions in the Premiership and the United Rugby Championship (URC) may give it visibility over strategic plans, player salary structures, sponsorship arrangements, and broadcasting negotiations. This access could lead to “soft alignment” on key commercial variables. This can have a chilling effect on competition, especially in markets like player recruitment. In sport, where labour costs (i.e., player salaries) are a primary competitive lever, the danger of information spillover is arguably even more acute.

Structural incentive risk:  Beyond the potential for coordination, there is a concern that the mere fact of common ownership creates disincentives for robust rivalry between leagues. A rational investor with equity in multiple competing rugby competitions has no interest in aggressive competition between them, whether in the form of escalating wages for players, overlapping broadcast rights, or zero-sum sponsorship deals. Instead, the incentive is to preserve margins and minimise impacts across the portfolio. This can manifest in subtle ways, such as a reluctance to expand player budgets, discouragement of new commercial formats that might disrupt other league assets, or pressure to align season calendars to avoid competition for viewers. Over time, this form of passive dampening can erode the dynamism and innovation that a competitive market would otherwise foster.

In the case of professional sport, the antitrust stakes are high. The downstream product, live competition between teams, is inherently fragile, with its value closely tied to perceived fairness, uncertainty of outcome, and the quality of on-field talent. These features arguably make the sector susceptible to even modest upstream distortions. A system in which labour market constraints or investment incentives are subtly aligned across competing leagues risks undermining the integrity of the sport as both an economic and cultural product.

IV. Labour Market Case in Waiting?

Player wages are a dominant cost in professional rugby. Like gig workers in the platform economy, rugby players are often on short-term contracts and often have limited bargaining power (a position which has been exacerbated by three of the Premiership teams entering administration and exiting the league, thereby further strengthening the monopsony power of the remaining teams).  If the leagues share salary data, the anticompetitive effects could mirror those in Delivery Hero. Cross-league minority ownership risks amplify concerns about wage suppression in an already constrained labour market. The presence of salary caps, combined with national team eligibility restrictions, such as the RFU’s policy limiting England selection to home-based players, already weakens the ability of players to negotiate across leagues. When these mechanisms are layered with the structural incentives of a common investor to avoid salary inflation across its portfolio, the cumulative effect could be to further restrict player mobility and bargaining leverage.

This raises the possibility that what may appear to be lawful regulatory measures (e.g., wage caps) could, in practice, operate as part of a broader coordinated wage-setting environment, facilitated by structural links between ostensibly independent leagues. Viewed through the lens of Delivery Hero, such conditions could meet the threshold for a by-object restriction of competition, particularly if internal communications or investor-led alignment on labour cost containment were to be uncovered. The risks are especially pronounced in professional sport, where a small number of employers compete for a limited pool of elite talent, and where the balance of power between buyer and seller is already skewed.

V. Legal Implications  

The Delivery Hero decision makes clear that minority ownership does not insulate firms from Article 101 TFEU liability. Structural links, when combined with information flows or aligned incentives may amount to by-object restrictions of competition.  Applied to sport, this means that:

1. PE-backed leagues with cross-ownership should consider firewalls or competition compliance structures. The same goes for the PE funds themselves: where economic incentives favour coordination, PE funds must be on their guard to ensure competition compliance;
2. Sports governing bodies must ensure that wage-data is protected and player salary strategies are independently determined;
3. Players could have standing to challenge cross-league arrangements that restrict labour market mobility.

VI. Conclusion

Premiership Rugby is in crisis. Since 2022, Wasps, Worcester Warriors, and London Irish have collapsed into administration and disappeared from the league. At least seven others are reportedly balance-sheet insolvent and dependent on owner subsidies to survive. For a sport with a proud heritage and increasing global exposure, this should ring alarm bells. Yet reform has been slow, piecemeal, and arguably misguided.

Competition law which is so often sidelined in discussions about sport governance, may now be one of the most effective tools available to interrogate the structural flaws of the Premiership.   While rugby is not yet in the competition law spotlight, sport and labour markets clearly are.  There has been a consistent increase in the number of sports cases, and labour market focused cases taken up by competition agencies across Europe. Delivery Hero provides a roadmap for how the Commission, and national competition authorities, might assess common ownership and cross-league coordination in sport.  Sport is not exempt from the scope of competition law, and as rugby’s financial precarity continues, enforcement may be not just inevitable, but essential.

Dr Bev Williamson is a consultant at Weyward Competition and a competition scholar. The views in this blog post are Dr Williamson’s own.

[1] Case AT.40795 – FOOD DELIVERY SERVICES, 2 June 2025, C(2025) 3304 final.