Abstract
When, in Walrave and Koch v Union Cycliste Internationale, the first case involving sport to reach the European Court, the Court stated that the practice of sport is subject to Community law ‘in so far as it constitutes an economic activity within the meaning of Article 2 of the Treaty’ it was impossible to avoid a frisson of intellectual excitement. Sport was not – is not – an explicit legislative competence of the EC, yet the functionally broad ambit of the Treaty’s economic law provisions wash over jurisdictionally distant shores – including those of sports federations. Enticing questions loom. How does one determine whether a particular sporting practice falls within the scope of the Treaty? And if it does, how does its compatibility with the Treaty fall to be assessed, given the absence of any explicit articulation of the intended relationship between EC trade law and sport? What innovative thinking is being demanded of the institutions of the EU?
First published in: M. Poiares Maduro & L. Azoulai (eds), The past and future of EU law: the classics of EU law revisited on the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty (Oxford, Hart, 2010), pp. 480–487.
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Notes
- 1.
Case 36/74 [1974] ECR 1405.
- 2.
Case 13/76 [1976] ECR 1333.
- 3.
Van Staveren 1989, 67.
- 4.
Cf. Evans 1986, 510.
- 5.
Case C-415/93 [1995] ECR I-4921.
- 6.
- 7.
Para. 110 of the judgment; and see more fully the Opinion of AG Lenz.
- 8.
- 9.
Case 36/74 note 1 above.
- 10.
Case C-372/04 [2006] ECR I-4325, para. 121.
- 11.
Cf. e.g. Case C-512/03 J E J Blankaert [2005] ECR I-7685.
- 12.
Cf. e.g. Case C-446/03 Marks and Spencer v Halsey [2005] ECR I-10837.
- 13.
Case C-265/95 Commission v France [1997] ECR I-6959.
- 14.
Case C-415/93 note 5 above.
- 15.
See e.g. Jans and Vedder 2007.
- 16.
- 17.
See Craufurd Smith 2004, ed..
- 18.
See e.g. Hervey and McHale 2004.
- 19.
See e.g. Caracciolo di Torella and Masselot 2004, 32.
- 20.
- 21.
- 22.
See e.g. Drobnig, Snijders and Zippro 2006.
- 23.
Cases C-51/96 & C-191/97 Deliége v Ligue de Judo [2000] ECR I-2549.
- 24.
Para. 64 of the judgment.
- 25.
Dec 2003/778 Champions League [2003] O.J. L291/25, paras. 125–131. Exemption pursuant to Art 81(3) was granted on the facts. See Weatherill 2006B, 3.
- 26.
COMP 37.806 ENIC/UEFA, IP/02/942, 27 June 2002.
- 27.
Case C-519/04 P judgment of 18 July 2006.
- 28.
Case T-313/02 [2004] ECR II-3291.
- 29.
Para. 49 CFI.
- 30.
Para. 27 ECJ.
- 31.
Para. 28 ECJ.
- 32.
- 33.
Para. 47 ECJ.
- 34.
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Weatherill, S. (2014). Bosman Changed Everything: The Rise of EC Sports Law. In: European Sports Law. ASSER International Sports Law Series. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-6704-939-9_20
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