HOW RECENT CJEU RULINGS CHANGED THE FOOTBALL REALITY IN EUROPE?
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Date
2026-10-08
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Plovdiv University Press
Abstract
In the period between December 2023 and August 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a series of judgments that substantially reconfigured the legal framework governing professional football in Europe. In European Superleague Company (C-333/21), Lassana Diarra (C-650/22), and Royal Football Club Seraing (C-600/23), the Court recalibrated the balance between the autonomy of sport and the requirements of EU law in the fields of competition, free movement, and effective judicial protection. This article examines how, taken together, these three judgments constrain the regulatory discretion of FIFA and UEFA by imposing requirements of transparency, proportionality, and judicial review in areas that have traditionally been governed through private-law sports regulation. Particular attention is devoted to the Diarra judgment and to FIFA’s subsequently adopted Interim Regulatory Framework amending the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP), assessing whether that framework substantively complies with the reasoning of the CJEU or instead merely seeks to mitigate the immediate effects of the ruling. In conclusion, the article advances the thesis that European football is entering a phase of “controlled autonomy,” in which private sports governance remains legitimate only insofar as it operates within a legally contestable framework compatible with market principles.
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EU competition law, free movement of workers, private sports regulation, FIFA, UEFA, transfer system, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), effective judicial protection