Sport and competition law in the European Union

This essay focuses on the relationships between sport and protective meas¬ures of competition within the framework of EU law. The emphasis on this topic plays a crucial role in the broader economic dimension of sport and the ways it affects compatibility of sporty rules with the principles enshrined in the EU Treaties. It is far from doubt that high-ranking sports represent an economic activ¬ity with its own peculiarities inherent in sports rules and sporting activity it¬self, the latter seen from a purely economic perspective. In the sport field, in fact, gaining monopoly as a typical objective of any enterprise involved in var¬ious sectors translates into a phenomenon which Neale referred to in the past as 'a disaster'. Without competitors on the outlook, there can be no sporty output (whether as a single match or a whole championship) being successfully achieved and sold. As a matter of fact, sport outcomes are not easy to plan since they can be influenced by several factors that escape any real ability to foresee by the company management itself (such as arbitral mistakes or health accidents suffered by athletes). Furthermore, it is also widely acknowledged that it is necessary to demonstrate a certain degree of competitive balance among various sport companies, on account of consumers-fans being uncertain about the final outcomes of any given sport activity. With this in mind, any reflec¬tion on the relationship between sport and antitrust law within the EU should therefore begin with the analysis of two closely related aspects: the need to make sport rules subordinate to competition rules set out in EU Treaties on the one hand, and the relevance held by the peculiarity of economic activity from the perspective of competition law on the other. Finally, the essay focuses on the varying importance possibly demonstrated by the objective for com-petitive balance within the analytical context of antitrust law in force in the USA and Europe.