Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates

European Court of Justice Marks Pathway for Sports Associations’ Governance of Ancillary Services

Skadden Publication / Antitrust and Competition Update

Bill Batchelor Antoni Terra Michael J. Frese Vikram J. Pandit

Executive Summary

  • What’s new: In ROGON and RRC Sports, the highest court of the European Union settled long-running disputes as to whether sports associations can regulate agents’ economic activities, including with rules on registration and licensing, remuneration and solicitation of potential clients. 
  • Why it matters: Sports association rules can engage both Articles 101 and 102 TFEU as associations of competing undertakings, sometimes with monopolies on related rulemaking. The ECJ found that automatic illegality did not apply to rules designed to ensure integrity of sporting competitions with incidental effects on agents’ activities. 
  • What to do next: The judgments clarify the framework for assessing sports associations’ regulations and offer a pathway to govern agents and other services ancillary to the sport. 

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In C-428/23, ROGON and Others (9 July 2026), German football player agents challenged the German football association’s (DFB’s) player agent regulations, which required agent registration, compliance with league rules and disclosure of fees. The regulations prohibited agents acting on inward transfers from taking commission from the team’s proceeds for future outward transfers of the same player or coach, and for transfers of minors.

In C-209/23, RRC Sports (16 July 2026), different German agents challenged FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations (FFAR) concerning international player and coach transfers.1 The rules required a FIFA licence, probity checks, restrictions soliciting transfers of players or coaches, and fee disclosure. It capped remuneration and prohibited fees for future transfers.

Applying the findings in European Super League and International Skating Union,2 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) — the highest court of the European Union — ruled in ROGON and RRC that DFB and FIFA are “associations of undertakings” subject to Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (ROGON, para. 32; RRC, paras. 72-74) and hold dominant positions in relation to rulemaking for agents subject to Article 102 TFEU (ROGON, para. 50 and RRC, para. 81).

The Prohibition of Restrictive Agreements – Article 101(1) TFEU

The ECJ confirmed that the “ancillary effects” Wouters (C 309/99) principle applied. EU competition law should not inhibit sporting associations’ rules affecting “the ecosystem which they regulate and control,” if necessary to pursue public interest objectives, just because they also have effects on third parties’ activities (ROGON, paras. 58-60). Rules on sports-related third-party activities are therefore not “by object” restrictions if intended to maintain sporting standards or competitive balance.

This is also reflected in RRC, although the ECJ identified two FFAR rules that could amount to restrictions of competition “by object” on the basis of having arbitrary effects or being distortive of competition:

  • Restricting agents from claiming unpaid fees if the client player or coach transfers to another entity before the contract expires, or they terminate prematurely without just cause, even if not involved, could deprive the agent of remuneration for their services arbitrarily (RRC, para. 137);
  • Prohibiting agents from approaching potential clients already bound by an exclusive representation contract, whilst permitting bound agents to renegotiate terms before a two-month negotiation window, confers an unjustified advantage on the engaged agents that is likely to distort the interplay of supply and demand (RRC, para. 158).

The Prohibition of Abuse of Dominance – Article 102 TFEU

The ECJ also stated that Articles 101 and 102 TFEU must be interpreted and applied consistently whilst respecting their specific characteristics (RRC, para. 235).

Sporting associations with a dominant position may be found to commit exclusionary abuses when regulatory powers are used to restrict, direct or regulate competition in line with the economic or competitive interests of its members and affiliates, regardless of whether effects occur in the markets where a sports association operates (RRC, para. 265).

Exploitative abuses can also be identified where a reasonably effective sports association, placed in a comparable situation, would have been led to adopt different rules, which would have been significantly less detrimental to the agents’ own interests despite being capable of achieving the same pursued objectives (RRC, para. 273).

Public Interest Justifications

ROGON confirms that public interest justifications can also be applied to sports association rules impacting third-party service providers (ROGON, para. 64).

In RRC, the ECJ determined that FFAR’s stated purpose of remedying market anomalies does not qualify as a public interest because it is purely economic in nature (RRC, para. 184). Pursuit of other not purely economic objectives may be legitimate despite not being directly linked to sporting competitions, including (RRC, paras. 187-189):

  • Establishing minimum professional and ethical standards.
  • Preventing unethical behaviours.
  • Protecting vulnerable players who lack experience of the transfer system.
  • Maintaining squad composition for the duration of the season.

Sports association rules that do not qualify as legitimate non-economic public interest considerations under Article 101(1) could still benefit from the efficiencies-based justification framework set out in Article 101(3) TFEU. The ECJ indicated that the FFAR restriction of agents’ ability to profit from market anomalies could imply the existence of efficiency gains (RRC, para. 224). However, the different conditions applicable to agents with and without an exclusive mandate meant in this case that FFAR’s rule cannot generate efficiency gains (RRC, para. 233).

The ECJ also explained that exclusionary or exploitative abuses of dominance under Article 102 TFEU may be justified by efficiency gains subject to the same conditions set out in Article 101(3) TFEU (RRC, paras. 275 and 281).

Takeaways

The ROGON and RRC judgments provide the most comprehensive guidance to date on the ability of sports associations to regulate economic activities of third-party service providers.

The ECJ did not depart from its contextual approach to identifying “by object” restrictions,3 i.e., the need to consider the relevant economic and legal context of an agreement or rule. The upshot is that associations retain room to regulate ancillary economic services if they pursue legitimate public interests and are carefully balanced. This creates a helpful pathway for associations to regulate activities ancillary to their sport.

Knowledge Management intern Rayhane Ricci contributed to this article. here

Image Check out the “Antitrust Challenges in Organized Sports: How They Play Out in the EU, UK and US” episode of our podcast “Fierce Competition” for a discussion of European Super League and ISU, among other cases.

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1 In RRC, the ECJ also examined issues relating to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Article 56 of the TFEU concerning the free movement of services. This note focuses on the arguments relating to EU competition law.

2 C-333/21, European Super League, para. 115 and Case C-124/21 P, ISU v. Commission, para. 90.

3 The ECJ followed the same approach earlier in 2026 in C-133/24, Tondela; see our 21 May 2026 client alert “A New EU Ruling on No-Poach Agreements in Sports Leaves Room for Roster Stability Considerations.”

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