Since the European Court of Justice delivered its landmark Bosman ruling in 1995 there has been an increase in the number of sports cases brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJ) and also of the policy and political initiatives of the EU in relation to sport. This trend culminated in the introduction of an EU sport competence in Article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Since the European Court of Justice delivered its landmark Bosman ruling in 1995 there has been an increase in the number of sports cases brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJ) and also of the policy and political initiatives of the EU in relation to sport. This trend culminated in the introduction of an EU sport competence in Article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty.
The latest judgment of the CJ on sport is the Bernard case and its implications were reviewed by Antoine Duval of the European University Institute in Firenze at last week’s Sport and the European Union conference held in Nottingham.
Olivier Bernard had been trained at Olympique Lyonnais but refused a contract with them and moved to Newcastle United in 1997. A court case was brought in the French labour court system (the functional equivalent of employment tribunals) agaisnt Bernard and Newcastle United. A ruling was found to be contrary to both EU law and French constitutional law and the matter was referred to the CJ.
The CJ found that Olympique Lyonnais were entitled to compensation but it had to be proportional, only the ‘actual training costs’ (although it is an interesting question how would one actually calculate these, for example what proportion of the capital costs of the training facilities should be allocated to an individual player).
Perhaps more significantly the CJ recognised the wide discretionary power of sports organisations in regulating their sport. After Lisbon we have moved from soft EU law to a recognition of the hard specificity of sport. EU law seems to be retreating from the regulation of professional sport to a position that allows more autonomy for sports organisations.