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Professional football - a business like any other ?

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Published 04 May 2006 - Updated 08 May 2006
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In a public hearing on professional football, organised in the European Parliament, stakeholders debated the consequences of implementing internal market rules for sports.

A public hearing on Professional football - market or society? took place in the European Parliament on 3 May 2006. The hearing, jointly organised by the Committees for Culture, Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Affairs and Employment and Social Affairs, gathered a number of European football experts to share their views on the social dimension and integration role of football and the various aspects related to professional football in the European internal market, such as media marketing rules and free movement of players.

Opening the session debating the relation between professional football and internal market rules, the MEP Toni Maunders laid down three options for reconciling sport and internal market:

  • exclusion of football from the internal market,
  • wait and see how the European Court of Justice (ECJ) shapes the sports law (case by case),
  • forcing dialogue between stakeholders and finding a suitable solution for everybody.
Positions: 

"The organising structure [of football] should comply with the economic legislation in the Internal Market", said MEP Toine Manders (ALDE), calling for a "debate on how to comply with the economic aspects of professional sport." 

"Sport is not like any other business. There is no need for internal market rules in sports," said the CEO of UEFA, Lars-Christer Olsson. 

President of Bayern Munich FC, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, addressed the issue of professional players' salary differences and called for limiting football clubs salary payments to a certain percentage of their budgets.

"The social aspect of football is being eroded because football teams are now investing less and less money in educating local talent", as they prefer to buy players from outside, said the Chairman of the EP Culture Committee, socialist MEP Nikolaos Sifunakis.

"Since the Bosman Ruling 10 years ago, football is regulated like any other economic sector. Free movement in the EU has had shocking consequences. There are less and less locally trained players since the European transfer market opened up. And this, especially when it is clear that football has a very important educative and social role to play," said MEP Ivo Belet EPP-ED).

Arnd Krüger, professor of sports management in the University of Göttingen called for the creation of a separate European league in football, which would "encourage UEFA to respect the internal market rules".

Next steps: 
  • The core theme for the Austrian Presidency of the EU (January-June 2006) is 'Sport and the Economy', with particular attention to the health industry, major sporting events, tourism, sport in the light of the demographic trend and sport as a job driver. 
  • The recent EU Sport Directors' conference called for strengthening the sports economy in Europe.
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Background: 

Around 3-4% of the EU's annual GDP is generated through sports and sports have an average annual growth rate of 4%, which is more than that of many EU member states (according to Arnd Krüger of the University of Göttingen).

A study entitled Professional sport in the internal market, commissioned by the Internal Market committee (IMCO) of the European Parliament and drafted by the Asser Instituut in The Hague and Lancaster University in the UK was published in September 2005. The study says that an EU directive for the liberalisation of the professional football sector could be a useful instrument to ensure principles of fair competition are respected (see EurActiv 30 September 2005).

The EC Treaty provides for no exemption for sport, meaning sporting rules may be subject to the full application of the EU legal framework. This can, and has already proved, however, to be problematic as sports does not operate under the same market conditions as other industries. The desirability of EU policy intervention in sports business also divides opinions.

For the relation between sport and internal market, see the Commission's Sport and internal market page.

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