Some time ago, the Super League was launched, a football league designed to compete directly with the Champions League by bringing together Europe's best teams (initially as a closed league for the top teams, later expanded to three divisions with promotions and relegations, and even a separate women's league).

Naturally, UEFA and FIFA were not about to allow a private entity to take away the business they had secured for decades, so they used all their power to block this possibility.

The case was brought before the Commercial Court of Madrid by A22 Sports Management, a structure created to launch a European Super League, a project led by two major Spanish football clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona. The latest version of the project envisages a continental championship with three divisions and a total of 80 participating clubs.

The presiding judge of the Commercial Court of Madrid No. 17 partially upheld the action brought by the European Super League Company S.L. (ESLC) against UEFA and FIFA, declaring that both organisations had abused their dominant position and hindered free competition in the market by assuming the discretionary power to prohibit participation in alternative competitions and by imposing unjustified and disproportionate restrictions in violation of Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

In other words, FIFA and UEFA have abused their dominant position and must "cease their anti-competitive practices", according to the ruling of the Madrid Commercial Court No. 17, which is in line with the European Court of Justice's decision last December that UEFA and FIFA's rules against the European Super League violated EU law.

The organising company based its claim on the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) ruling in December last year, which found that UEFA's ban on the Super League was contrary to European law because it did not have clear criteria for authorising or not authorising new competitions.

For the Madrid court, the actions of FIFA and UEFA were aimed not only at "preventing the development of a specific project, but also at preventing the establishment of a third competitor and the alteration of the monopolistic system of organising competition".

"There can be no prohibition or restriction in the abstract, that is, a future prohibition of any other project or modification of the one already presented," adds Judge Sofía Gil in her ruling.

"To accept otherwise would be to approve a kind of prohibition or shielding of any football competition project" that competes with UEFA's crown jewel, the Champions League, the judge added, calling on FIFA and UEFA to "put an end" to their anti-monopoly practices.

Launched in 2021 by 12 clubs, including Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Italian clubs Inter, AC Milan and Juventus, the first draft of the Super League was quickly buried by opposition from fans, especially those of English clubs, and threats from UEFA and FIFA. As time went on, the project lost momentum and the Spanish clubs were the only survivors of the original plan.

In February 2024, 26 of the 27 EU governments, with the exception of Spain, signed a joint declaration against the Super League following the ECJ ruling at the end of last year.

The project was relaunched last winter following the ECJ's ruling, which found that the powers of the two bodies were not then "framed by criteria ensuring their transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate nature".

However, UEFA claimed to have corrected this "gap" following the approval of a new regulation in June 2022. "This ruling does not imply any approval or validation of the so-called Super League," the European governing body said at the time.

The ruling also orders FIFA and UEFA to put an end to the sanctioned anti-competitive practices and prohibits them from recurring in the future.

In the ruling, which is in line with the decision of the European Court of Justice, to which the same court referred a preliminary question prior to the hearing, the judge declares that Articles 22, 70, 71, 72 and 73 of the FIFA Statutes, Article 6 of the FIFA Regulations for International Matches and Articles 49 and 51 of the UEFA Statutes are incompatible with Articles 101 and 102 of the TFEU with regard to the legal and jurisprudential framework of the competition market in the European Union.

The ruling upholds the action brought by the ESLC "because the defendants' actions were not only aimed at preventing the development of a specific project, but also at preventing the establishment of a third competitor and changing the monopolistic system of organising competition".

The decision is based on the fact that the same defence has been maintained throughout the proceedings, despite the fact that the Super League project has faded away, which indicates that the initial actions were linked to the opposition to the change in the system of authorising competitions by third party competitors.

Finally, the ruling adds that "the initial actions were related to the opposition to the modification of the system for the authorisation of third-party competitions".

So many twists and turns, changes in the organisers' criteria, pressure and updates to the legislation, as well as court rulings, do not seem to ensure that there will ultimately be a football Super League parallel to FIFA and UEFA.

However, the saga is not over. This ruling is not final and can be appealed to Section 28 of the Provincial Court of Madrid, the body responsible for commercial matters, which could set other guidelines or criteria to be followed.