EU Competition Law and Organisational Rules

This chapter addresses the application of EU competition law to organisational rules in the sports sector, including the judgments that were passed by the CJEU on this topic, as well as the relevant European Commission decisions. Internal market cases are also discussed in a separate section to the extent necessary. They are important for the understanding of competition law due to the high level of convergence between the two areas in their application to the rules of sports governing bodies. The 2006 Meca-Medina case deserves special attention in this regard because it confirmed that the Wouters test that introduced regulatory ancillarity in the EU competition law analytical framework applies to organisational rules in the sport industry. Implicitly and retrospectively, Meca-Medina also validated the Commission’s approach in ENIC and Mouscron cases. Finally, the Commission Staff Working Document contains Annex I on Sport and EU Competition Rules that provided a useful general guidance and will be examined in detail.