EU law protects market competition but has been used too little to help football fans. Worse still, Europe has helped the big clubs to increase their market power, writes Tsjalle van der Burg.
Football tickets have become expensive. Paris Saint-Germain currently top the European ranking: in 2024-25, the average admission price for a seat was €139. Barcelona, Real Madrid and four English clubs followed, while Bayern Munich was eighth at €79. Signs suggest ticket prices have risen further this year and the EU shares part of the blame for this.
Fans like to watch a club that can win major trophies. In the past, there was much choice. In the 1970s, five clubs in France were national champions. In the past 10 years, by contrast, PSG have won eight times. So, anyone now wishing to see a French winner has fewer options, which implies competition in the French consumer market has decreased. This helps explain the high prices of tickets. Similar stories hold elsewhere.
In principle, EU competition law protects market competition. Unfortunately, it has been used too little to help football fans. Worse still, Europe has helped the big clubs to increase their market power.
Bosman ruling
This began in 1995 with the European Court of Justice’s Bosman ruling, which allowed players with expiring contracts to move clubs without a transfer fee. This benefited wealthy clubs and reduced competitive balance on the fields. The court’s motivation was that there should be free movement of workers. European rules are clear on this, and lawyers refer to this as “hard law”.
During the case, football federations countered that the transfer system helped maintain competitive balance, making football more attractive and thus serving a public interest that should justify an exception to hard law. In Bosman, the judges found the competitive-balance argument relevant in principle, but after much consideration, hard law won.
However, the court overlooked a crucial point. Because less competitive balance means fewer clubs win major trophies, it also means less competition in consumer markets. That competition falls under hard law. By undermining market competition, the Bosman ruling itself contravened hard law.
The court should therefore have balanced the hard law of free movement of workers against the hard law of competition in consumer markets plus the soft law of the public interest of exciting matches. The outcome could have been different. In 2024, the court’s Diarra ruling further weakened the transfer system, with a motivation similar to that in Bosman.
Royal Antwerp ruling
The European Court of Justice’s 2023 Royal Antwerp ruling could further undermine competitive balance. Royal Antwerp concerns Uefa’s rules mandating clubs to have a quota of “homegrown” players. A Belgian court could judge it this week and is expected to weaken or end the rule.
One of the rule’s objectives is to improve competitive balance by limiting rich clubs from fielding only the world’s top players. Research suggests it achieves this effect, though more study is needed. Unfortunately, this effect was sidelined in Royal Antwerp. This was incorrect.
To the extent that the rule promotes competitive balance, it also promotes competition in consumer markets. This provides a hard-law argument for the rule, which the court should have examined thoroughly. I hope the Belgian court will ask the European Court to explain why it did not. Does justice really mean that judges can ignore the benefits of low prices for fans?
European Super League
Another reason for declining competitiveness is the attempted European Super League which, although aborted, led investors to seek a court order to prevent Uefa from imposing sanctions on similar future projects. The European Court largely agreed, arguing that competition organisers should be free to compete.
This decision once again ignored consumer markets. Any form of Super League would mean fewer clubs could win the European title, thereby reducing competition in consumer markets.
EU competition law prohibits agreements between clubs (and concerted practices) that restrict market competition. Every Super League, and any threat thereof, violates these rules because it is based on an agreement between clubs (or a concerted practice) that restricts competition in consumer markets. The European competition authorities should therefore have banned all Super Leagues and associated threats long ago.
Without the threat of a Super League, Europe’s major clubs would have had less power. Democratic decision-making within the football federations, where small clubs and small countries hold most of the votes, would have regained prominence, leading to more competitive balance, more market competition, and lower prices.
EU sports legislation
Such an outcome is still possible. Supporters’ organisations could go to court and demand that competition law be enforced. But it might be even better if they joined the call for special EU sports legislation, demanding that it should promote competitive balance and competition in consumer markets, making the game less expensive and more exciting.
Unfortunately, the EU has done little to help fans so far. This raises a question: is the EU willing to uphold competition law to benefit fans, small clubs and overall welfare even if it comes at a cost to large clubs and wealthy investors? Or is Europe a project that mainly honours the lawyers and lobbyists of the rich?
Tsjalle van der Burg is an assistant professor of economics and now a researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. This article is based on a longer article on LSE Blogs.