Editor’s note: Stefano
Bastianon is Associate Professor in EU Law and EU sports law at the University
of Bergamo and lawyer admitted to the Busto Arsizio bar. He is also member of
the IVth Division of the High Court of Sport Justice (Collegio di
Garanzia dello sport) at the National Olympic Committee.
1. On the
20th July 2018, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (hereinafter
referred to as “CAS”) issued its decision in the arbitration procedure between AC Milan
and UEFA. The subject matter of this arbitration procedure was
the appeal filed by AC Milan against the decision of the
Adjudicatory Chamber of the UEFA Financial Control Body
dated 19th June 2018 (hereinafter referred to as “the contested
decision”). As many likely know, the CAS has acknowledged that, although AC
Milan was in breach of the break-even requirement, the related exclusion of the
club from the UEFA Europe League was not proportionate. To date, it is the
first time the CAS clearly ruled that the sanction of exclusion from UEFA club
competitions for a breach of the break-even requirement was not proportionate.
For this reason the CAS award represents a good opportunity to reflect on the
proportionality test under Art. 101 TFEU and the relationship between the
landmark ruling of the European Court of Justice (hereinafter referred to as
“ECJ”) in the Meca Medina and Majcen affair and the very recent case-law of the CAS. More...
The first part of this series looked at the legal framework in which FFP
sits, concluding that FFP occupied a ‘marginal’ legal position – perhaps
legal, perhaps not. Given the significant financial
interests in European football – UEFA’s figures suggest aggregate revenue of nearly €17 billion as at clubs’ 2015
accounts – and the close correlation between clubs’ spending on wages and their
success on the field,[1] a legal
challenge to the legality of FFP’s ‘break even’ requirement (the Break Even
Requirement), which restricts a particular means of spending, was perhaps
inevitable.
And so it followed.
Challenges to the legality of
the Break Even Requirement have been brought by football agent Daniel Striani,
through various organs of justice of the European Union and through the Belgian
courts; and by Galatasaray in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. As an
interesting footnote, both Striani and Galatasaray were advised by “avocat superstar” Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer who acted in several of sports law’s
most famous cases, including the seminal Bosman case. Dupont has been a vocal critic of FFP’s legality since its inception. More...