---
title: "CJEU delivers three football governance decisions in the EU; GDPR applies to federation data"
sdDatePublished: "2026-07-31T16:46:00Z"
source: "https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/three-football-cases-cjeu-tide-turning-slightly-favour-sports-governing-bodies"
topics:
  - name: "football"
    identifier: "medtop:20001065"
  - name: "law"
    identifier: "medtop:20000121"
locations:
  - "Germany"
  - "Italy"
---


CJEU delivers three football governance decisions in the EU; GDPR applies to federation data

Three football cases before the CJEU - Is the tide turning slightly in favour of sports governing bodies?

Three football cases before the CJEU - Is the tide turning slightly in favour of sports governing bodies?

On 9 and 16 July 2026, the European Court of Justice ("CJEU") delivered three decisions concerning the compatibility of football governance rules with EU law. In ROGON, 1 the CJEU confirmed that its principles in Wouters and Meca-Medina apply to football agent regulations issued by a football federation, including even those governing third parties. In RRC Sports, 2 the CJEU examined the FIFA Football Agent Regulations ("FFAR") in detail, viewed positively most of their provisions and confirmed that FIFA has the power to regulate football agents, subject to compliance with EU competition and data protection law. In CONI, 3 the CJEU ruled on the compatibility with EU law of sports disciplinary sanctions, confirming that such sanctions may justifiably restrict fundamental freedoms, while also placing important conditions on how Member States must ensure effective judicial protection in sports disciplinary matters.

EU competition law, including the Wouters

Meca-Medina exception, applies to football agent regulations. Sports federations can regulate services of non-members such as agents, subject always to the same substantive test (no restriction by object, and in case of restriction by effect, only when it is for a legitimate non-economic objective, subject to the necessity and proportionality requirements).

FIFA can invoke legitimate objectives to justify its regulations even without any public mandate.

For the first time, the CJEU examined the FFRA and considered that only very few provisions of the FFAR are restrictions "by object", notably certain aspects of the remuneration forfeiture rule (Article 14(12)(a) FFAR) and the no-approach rules as applied to incumbent agents (Article 16(1)(b) and (c) FFAR).

RRC Sports is the first CJEU ruling to apply the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") to a sports federation's regulatory framework, holding that blanket disclosure of all sanctions regardless of severity and full data disclosure violate the principles of necessity and data minimisation. This could affect how any governing body structures its transparency obligations going forward.

Extending its ISU and Seraing jurisprudence to sports federations' disciplinary systems, in CONI the CJEU found that such disciplinary systems must be governed by transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria and that EU domestic courts must be able to exercise effective judicial control over decisions resulting from those systems, unless at least one reviewing body within the sports justice system qualifies as a "court or tribunal" within the meaning of EU law, meeting the requirements of independence, impartiality, prior establishment by law, judicial function and effective review powers.

The judgments delivered in ROGON, RRC Sports and CONI are the latest additions to a sequence of rulings by the CJEU that have, since December 2023, addressed the relationship between professional sports governance and EU law. The rulings in European Superleague Company (" Superleague ", C 333

21), International Skating Union v Commission (" ISU ", C 124

21), Royal Antwerp Football Club (" Royal Antwerp ", C 680

21), and in Diarra (C 650

22) clarified that regulations that are competition-restricting "by object" fall outside the Wouters

Meca-Medina exception and cannot be justified on sporting grounds (see, e.g., Superleague, paragraph 186), and that Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ("TFEU") confers no immunity from the competition and free movement rules (Superleague, paragraphs 95 106).

23) and RRC Sports (C-209

23), decided on 9 and 16 July 2026 respectively by the same Fifth Chamber, address the legal status of players' agent regulations at national and international level. CONI, also decided on 16 July 2026 by the same Chamber, extends this line of jurisprudence to sports disciplinary sanctions and the fundamental right to effective judicial protection under Article 19(1) Treaty on European Union (" TEU ") and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (" Charter ").

In a similar challenge of the FFAR before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (" CAS "), the CAS found that the fee cap (Article 15(2) of the FFAR) was a restriction "by effect" only and that the challenged provisions met the Wouters

23 — ROGON GmbH & Co. KG and Others v Deutscher Fußball-Bund eV (DFB)

ROGON was a reference from the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, Germany) under Article 267 TFEU on the interpretation of Article 101(1) TFEU in relation to the Reglement für Spielervermittlung (RfSV) of the Deutscher Fussball-Bund ("DFB"), i.e., its regulations governing the activities of players' agents, which imposed registration obligations, required submission to FIFA, DFB and Deutsche Fussball Liga ("DFL") jurisdiction, disclosure of fees and imposition of sanctions for non-compliance, among others. The two questions referred to the CJEU focused on whether the Wouters

Meca-Medina exception applies where a federation's regulations govern non-member third parties (agents), and if so, whether the proportionality assessment must be conducted provision-by-provision.

The CJEU confirmed that Article 101(1) TFEU applies to regulations adopted by a sports federation governing non-member third parties. It held that the DFB may be regarded as having the status of an association of undertakings also with respect to upstream markets, such as for the recruitment of players or trainers, or the services of agents with a view to the transfer of professional players or trainers from one club to another (paragraph 32).

The CJEU recalled with reference to Wouters

Meca-Medina, that not every agreement, decision or practice restricting freedom of action is necessarily prohibited by Article 101(1) TFEU. Such an agreement can be exempted from the prohibition as long as it is not a restriction of competition by object and where (i) the conduct is justified by a legitimate public-interest objective not per se anticompetitive, (ii) the means used are genuinely necessary, which implies that there are no other measures that would be as effective for that purpose whilst being less restrictive of competition, and (iii) the inherent anticompetitive effects are not disproportionate to such an objective, in particular by eliminating all competition on the relevant market. The CJEU held that in the football ecosystem, clubs, national federations, players and agents must interact and cooperate to ensure the viability and attractiveness of the sport, and that regulations pursuing sporting integrity and contractual stability may, by necessity, produce effects on the upstream agents' market without that fact alone preventing application of the Wouters

On the second question, the Court held that the conditions of the Wouters

Meca-Medina exception need not be assessed with regard to each individual provision in isolation, but with regard to a set of provisions pursuing a distinct objective or producing a distinct effect, though artificial disaggregation of indissociable or ancillary provisions should be avoided (paragraphs 67–70). The Bundesgerichtshof was left to apply these standards to the individual RfSV provisions.

23 – FT and RRC Sports GmbH v Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)

This case arose from a reference by the Landgericht Mainz (Regional Court Mainz, Germany) and concerned the compatibility of the FFAR, adopted on 16 December 2022, with Articles 101, 102 and 56 TFEU and Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR. The applicants (an agent and vice-president of the Football Forum agents' association (FT), and RRC Sports GmbH, his German company) sought injunctive relief against 13 specific FFAR provisions covering remuneration caps, multiple representation restrictions, licensing conditions, no-approach rules, and data disclosure obligations.

At the outset, the CJEU confirmed its findings made in ROGON that regulations of sports associations governing services of economic operators related to the professional exercise of the sport, including those, like the FFAR, that regulate agents' activities, may fall within Articles 56, 101 and 102 TFEU, since agent activities constitute an economic service consisting in connecting players or coaches with clubs for consideration.

Turning to Article 101 TFEU, the CJEU first confirmed that FIFA is an "association of undertakings" within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU. It then went on to examine the challenged FFAR for whether they constituted restrictions by object or by effect.

On restrictions by object, the CJEU found that most of the challenged provisions, including those on multiple representation in Article 12(8)-(10) FFAR, the dynamic service-fee cap in Article 15(2) FFAR, the client-pays rule in Article 14(2)-(3) FFAR, the payment modality rules in Articles 15(1), 14(7) and 14(10) FFAR, and the presumption clause in Article 15(3)-(4) FFAR, do not constitute restrictions "by object", since they do not fix a rigid price ceiling, do not prevent price or quality competition, and are not obviously harmful to normal market functioning.

However, the CJEU found that Article 14(12)(a) FFAR, which strips an agent of unpaid remuneration earned on a prior transfer if the player subsequently moves to another club, even where the agent no longer represents the player and played no part in the new transfer, is inherently harmful to normal competition because the forfeiture is arbitrary, following the reasoning of Diarra (C-650

22, paragraphs 137–138). The CJEU also found that the no-approach rules in Article 16(1)(b) and (c) FFAR, which bar agents from contacting or contracting with clients already bound by an exclusive mandate, constituted a restriction "by object" insofar as they exempt agents bound by an exclusive mandate, who need not wait out the two-month window to renegotiate, thereby conferring an unjustified structural advantage on those already holding exclusive contracts (paragraph 158).

Leaving the determination of a restriction "by effect" of the remaining provisions to the referring court, the CJEU turned to the question of justification. It first observed that purely economic objectives such as correcting information asymmetries or lack of remuneration transparency cannot qualify as legitimate objectives "in the public interest" for the Wouters

Meca-Medina exception. By contrast, the CJEU found that establishing minimum professional and ethical standards for agents, protecting clients from unethical behaviour, protecting inexperienced players, and ensuring squad continuity during a sporting season can be recognised as legitimate non-economic objectives (paragraph 188). The CJEU thus also considered that FIFA, despite never having been mandated by public authorities to regulate in the public interest, was entitled to pursue such legitimate objectives in its regulations. Applying those standards, the CJEU concluded that:

The multiple-representation restrictions and rules on remuneration, including the dynamic salary cap, appear appropriate to prevent conflicts of interest, the protection of unexperienced players and other objectives of a public interest and are not obviously disproportionate, subject to the national court verifying that no less restrictive alternative would be equally effective (paragraphs 192–195).

The no-approach rules cannot be justified because FIFA's only identified non-economic aim, i.e., providing players a clear time window to choose an agent, is not pursued coherently or systematically, given that incumbent agents are wholly exempt from the restriction (paragraphs 212–213).

The transparency obligations in Articles 16(2)(j) and 19(a)–(