ABSTRACT
This chapter traces back the recent uptick in EU antitrust enforcement action vis-à-vis sports governance to developments in the case law of the EU courts, which gradually determined the scope of application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and shaped the principles for the assessment of sporting rules and practices under these provisions. This introduction of the relevant analytical framework reveals the unique function of EU antitrust law to assert control over the transnational private regulation of sports. But to what extent has it been a motor of change? The seminal Meca-Medina ruling did not open the floodgates to large numbers of antitrust challenges against SGBs, as some had anticipated. The chapter describes how key legal and practical hurdles (limiting access to public and private antitrust enforcement) have continued to undercut EU antitrust law’s potential to play a more significant role in promoting procedural and substantive principles of good sports governance. It concludes with some thoughts on developments we can expect going forward, however, suggesting that change may well be afoot.
