After another battle, Real Madrid and Barcelona’s Superliga revived
Yeray Vergara
May 28, 2024

The Commercial Court No. 17 of Madrid has ruled in favor of the Super League, a competition promoted by Real Madrid and Barça, accusing FIFA and UEFA of abusing their dominant position and stifling free competition in the market. According to SportsIn, Real Madrid intends to continue with the creation of this league.

This ruling aligns with the European Court of Justice’s decision last December, which stated that “Articles 22, 70, 71, 72, and 73 of the FIFA Statutes and Articles 49 and 41 of the UEFA Statutes are incompatible with Articles 101 and 102 of the European Court of Justice regarding the legal and jurisprudential framework of the competition market in the European Union.”

REAL MADRID MOVES FORWARD

According to SportsIn, after the new ruling in favor of the Superliga project, Real Madrid is still thinking about formalizing the Superliga and, as stated by the ‘cadena Cope’, Florentino Perez’s idea is to start competing for the 2025-2026 season.

THE SUPERLEAGUE IDEA

In April 2021, the European Super League project was officially announced, aiming to replace the Champions League as we know it. Led by Real Madrid, with support from FC Barcelona and initially several other teams from different leagues, many teams eventually withdrew.

During these three years there has been a lot of news about the Superliga. The judicial news, for the most part, has ranged from prohibiting UEFA from sanctioning the clubs promoting the Superliga to the aforementioned ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Others took place a few days after the announcement of the Super League, when most of the founding clubs announced their decision not to participate in the Super League, leaving Real Madrid, Barça and Juventus alone, the latter of which would also end up withdrawing in the summer of 2023.

Another aspect to take into account are the fans, the founding clubs that withdrew did so because of pressure from their fans, even demonstrating in front of the stadiums asking their clubs’ leaders to withdraw the team from the Superliga project.

Despite this, Real Madrid and Barça, – with Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta at the head – presented in December last year 2023 the format of the European Super League, consisting of 64 teams, with three divisions with promotions and relegations and with two phases, one league and one playoffs. Teams would be guaranteed 14 matches per season and it would be an open competition.

THE POSITION OF LALIGA AND UEFA

Following the ruling, UEFA issued a statement reminding that the Super League is not validated anywhere: “The court has not given the green light nor approved projects like the Super League. In fact, the judge stated that the Super League project has been abandoned for a long time.”

Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, reacted to the ruling on Twitter, aligning with UEFA, arguing that “the new project is not validated… moreover, it is considered an abandoned project in its initial terms.”

It seems that this story still has several chapters left, and we will see if, as Real Madrid claims, the European Super League will be operational in 2025.

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