Along with various other European leagues – including the Scottish, German, Italian and Spanish leagues – and the global players’ union (Fifpro), the Premier League is claiming that football’s global governing body is risking the health of the players by adding more games to the calendar.

The claim particularly seems to relate to FIFA’s desire to host an expanded Club World Cup during the northern hemisphere summer next year, which the leagues and players’ unions claim they were not consulted about.

The competition law aspect of the claim derives from the fact that FIFA acts both as the governing body for football globally, but also organises its own tournaments – most notably the World Cup and Club World Cup.  The leagues and unions are therefore arguing that FIFA is in a unique position to select dates for its competitions and expand the schedule (though most governing bodies will be in a similar position of organising events themselves as well as overseeing the sport’s governance).

There is an interesting contrast to be drawn with the world of cricket.  There, the governing body (the ICC) also organises its own tournaments as well as overseeing international cricket more broadly.  However, it has bowed to the power of the Indian Cricket Board by ensuring that there is a de facto window without any international cricket during which the spotlight Indian domestic tournament (the IPL) can be played. 

The key difference between the sports is that for cricket (with the exception of the IPL) the major highlights in the calendar are still the international tournaments organised by the ICC.  In football, the leagues and club competitions are at least as popular as international tournaments, meaning that there is far more scope for disagreement and it is not an accepted fact that a global tournament organised by the governing body will take precedence over a domestic league.

In the words of the complaint: “FIFA’s decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.”

The argument against FIFA could be that they have scheduled the Club World Cup to coincide with what would normally be the summer break for players in Europe and in a year when there would not have been a major international tournament.  This is doubtless what is meant by “favour[ing] its own […] commercial interests” and harming player welfare.

However, arguments around scheduling and player welfare start to get complicated.  FIFA organises the World Cup and the qualification tournaments, as well as international friendlies and its expanded Club World Cup.  But UEFA is in charge of the recently-concluded European Championships, as well as the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.  Then the domestic leagues run their own leagues.  Sometimes they also organise domestic cup competitions and sometimes that is done by the governing body in that country (e.g. the English FA).  So, for a player at a club like Manchester City, their time is being fought over by potentially four or five different bodies, which makes it difficult to place the blame for an overcrowded schedule at one group’s door.

FIFA’s main defence is that clubs use the summer break to play in friendly matches that they have organised themselves and often involve large amounts of international travel.  The most headline-grabbing example of this recently was when Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United played a friendly in Australia on May 22^nd, four days after the Premier League season had finished.  Likewise, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool all have pre-season matches organised against each other in the United States this summer.  It’s hard to argue that player welfare is top of the list of priorities when organising post-season games or playing local rivals in a foreign country rather than at home – this very much smacks of favouring commercial interests over player welfare, which is exactly what they are accusing FIFA of.

Since most sporting governing bodies are effectively monopolies, it can certainly be argued that FIFA enjoys a dominant position – especially in light of the European Super League case, discussed here.  Has it abused it?  Trying to fit any new tournament into the current football calendar seems virtually impossible.  It would certainly have been easy for FIFA to have abused its power more obviously by scheduling the Club World Cup during the European season and insisting on clubs taking part.  That would have been a clear and obvious example of favouring its own competitions at the expense of national leagues.  FIFA also claims representatives of the leagues and unions were consulted and did not object (though this may end up as a “he said/she said” argument with both sides shouting “did” or “did not” across the court room).

While FIFA’s argument that the clubs and leagues themselves are paying scant regard to player welfare in their attempts to promote their own commercial interests may well be valid, I don’t think pointing out someone else’s wrong-doing works particularly well as a defence.  At this early stage therefore it seems as though FIFA’s lawyers will have a lot of work on their hands to defend the charge.

Chambers Europe ranks the leading law firms and lawyers who have shown excellent in their work across competition law. This legal matter will be presented before the European Commission. To view the top legal talent advising on Competition law matters before the European Commission please click here.