Tag: sports
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Competition law in sports: it’s time to talk about merger control
When the US hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994, it was said to have spent $500 million on the tournament. Fast forward to 2022, Qatar reportedly spent a whopping $220 billion. Sport is now “big business” . . . and being big business means competition law scrutiny. There are three main fields of competition…
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Royal Antwerp – Breaking new ground in antitrust in labour markets
To ensure a steady supply of football talent, professional football clubs must do their bit to invest in grassroots football. To incentivise this investment, UEFA and several national football associations introduced “home-grown player rules”, which dictate that a minimum number of players on the match sheet must be home-grown. However, a player, supported by Royal…
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Super League – From “legislative bomb” to judicial bombshell
Competition law in sports is full of interesting paradoxes. When I was at the Competition and Markets Authority, the news around the creation of the Super League broke, and many stakeholders contacted us because, they said, surely this is a cartel between the participating teams. Of course there was a question then about whether competition…