As one of the primary aims of the EU has been to establish a common market and foster competition, and as soccer has increasingly become a large economic enterprise, the EU's regulation of soccer is simply not surprising. Legal scrutiny of sports rules and regulations has grown as the EU has expanded its involvement in the regulation of Member States. The realm of professional soccer has perhaps been the most publicized and hotly debated area of sports in the EU. What was once thought to be immune from the scrutiny and regulation of EU institutions such as the European Council, the Commission, and the ECJ, is no longer afforded such protection. That is, the governing bodies of professional soccer can no longer rely on the past deference afforded to them. A brief discussion of the inherent purposes of the EU helps explain why this is so.
II. Should the EU Regulate Professional Soccer?
a. The Purpose of the EU
The EU's structure and its very purpose has been to regulate the affairs of Europe; to establish a consistent set of rules and regulations which will help unify Europe into a single cohesive entity. [1] But sports organizations have been hesitant to let the EU govern the realm of sports. [2] Initially, even the EU appeared to have decided to refrain, as the 1957 Treaty of Rome did not specifically mention the regulation of sports. [3] But the landscape of profesional sports has drastically changed since then, and although the governing bodies of professional soccer would like nothing more than the EU to refrain from meddling in their affairs, the EU's involvement did not merely stem from its own interest in regulating professional soccer. That is, the European Commission, by the end of 1998, had been presented with a large number of complaints related to sports. [4]
Thus, the EU should be involved in the regulation of sports, especially professional soccer, due to the growing legal uncertainties in the business of sports. Most importantly, these legal uncertainties have to do mainly with the economic aspects of professional soccer. Given this fact, and given the EU's commitment to establishing free markets and fair competition among businesses, it appears that not only does the EU have sufficient legal footing to be involved in professional soccer, but also an obligation, if professional soccer threatens the economic objectives of the EU.
The economic objectives of the EU can be traced back to the founding treaty of the EU, the Treaty of Rome. The purpose of the Treaty of Rome was to remove trade barriers between the members through the creation of a common market. [5] This purpose is also evident in the EC Treaty. [6]
But the desire to get involved stems not only from a desire to integrate economies and remove obstacles to trade, but also due to the EU's commitment to socio-cultural integration. [7] If soccer is such a cultural glue, and if its popularity is shared by a large number of Europeans, then it would naturally make sense for the EU to express interest. The EU is in the business of creating a unified Europe, and in the process is interested in fostering a European identity. Thus, the EU's involvement in soccer would appear to be appropriate. [8]
However, there has always been strong resistance towards the EU's involvement in the regulation of professional soccer, as governing bodies of the sport have always felt that the special nature of their sport will be severely misunderstood. [9] Although professional soccer may possess characteristics which render it unlike ordinary businesses, the fact of the matter is that its tremendous commercialization in the recent past makes it susceptible to legal second-guessing and intervention. [10]
Aside from the question of whether the EU should regulate professional soccer, it is quite evident that it will regulate it. The governing bodies of soccer have recognized this truth for quite a while now, and have been quite active in maintaining their own involvement in the decision-making process, by attempting to form a working dialogue with the EU, however grudgingly they may be doing so. [11]
Sources:
1. See European Community Treaty, art. 2.
2. Richard Parrish, Reconciling Conflicting Approaches to Sport in the European Union, in PROFESSIONAL SPORT IN THE EU: REGULATION AND RE-REGULATION 21 (Andrew Caiger and Simon Gardiner, eds., T.M.C. Asser Press 2000).
3. See id.
4. Id.
5. Europa- The EU at a Glance-The History of the European Union,http://europa.eu/abc/hostory/indexen.htm.
6. See European Community Treaty, art. 2.
7. Parrish, supra note 2, at 21.
8. See id. (discussing the use of sports to promote European solidarity and identity, and noting that soccer is a tool of urban and regional regeneration and a tool to combat social exclusion).
9. See Stephen Weatherill, Resisting the Pressures of "Americanization": The Influence of European Community Law on the "European Sport Model", 8 WILLIAMETTE J. INT'L L. & DISPUTE RES. 37, 40 (2000) (discussing the arguments for why professional soccer should be self-regulated, and rejecting them as generally lacking intellectal persuasion).
10. See id. at 41.
11. UEFA-UEFA Organization-Introduction: EU Matters, athttp://www.uefa.com/uefa/keytopics/kind=2048/index.html.