Opinion of Advocate General Emiliou delivered on 15 May 2025.

• Jurisdiction: European Union
• Court: Court of Justice (European Union)
• ECLI: ECLI:EU:C:2025:364
• Date: 15 May 2025

Provisional text

OPINION OF ADVOCATE GENERAL

EMILIOU

delivered on 15 May 2025 (1)

Case C‑133/24

CD Tondela – Futebol, SAD,

Clube Desportivo Feirense – Futebol, SAD,

Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (CA/LPFP),

Académico de Viseu Futebol Clube, Futebol SAD,

Os Belenenses – Sociedade Desportiva de Futebol, SAD,

Boavista Futebol Clube, Futebol SAD,

Sporting Clube de Braga, Futebol, SAD,

Sporting Clube da Covilhã – Futebol, SDUQ, Lda,

Estoril Praia – Futebol, SAD,

Gil Vicente Futebol Clube – Futebol, SDUQ, Lda,

Leixões Sport Clube, Futebol, SAD,

Clube Desportivo de Mafra – Futebol, SDUQ, Lda,

União Desportiva Oliveirense – Futebol, SAD,

Futebol Clube de Paços de Ferreira, SDUQ, Lda,

Futebol Clube de Penafiel, SA,

Portimonense Futebol, SAD,

Rio Ave Futebol Clube – Futebol SDUQ, Lda,

Santa Clara Açores – Futebol, SAD,

Varzim Sporting Club – Futebol, SDUQ, Lda,

União Desportiva Vilafranquense, Futebol SAD,

Futebol Clube de Famalicão – Futebol SAD,

Associação Académica de Coimbra – Organismo Autónomo de Futebol, SDUQ, Lda,

Moreirense Futebol Clube – Futebol, SAD,

Marítimo da Madeira, Futebol, SAD,

Vitória Sport Clube – Futebol, SAD,

Futebol Clube do Porto, Futebol, SAD,

Sporting Clube de Portugal – Futebol, SAD,

Sport Lisboa e Benfica, Futebol, SAD

v

Autoridade da Concorrência

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal da Concorrência, Regulação e Supervisão (Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court, Portugal))

( Reference for a preliminary ruling – Competition – Article 101 TFEU – Professional football – National league – Concepts of anticompetitive ‘object’ and ‘effect’ – COVID‑19 pandemic – No-poach agreement – Judgment in Meca-Medina (C‑519/04 P) )

I. Introduction

1. In a number of recent cases – namely, ISU, (2) Superleague, (3)Royal Antwerp (4) and FIFA (5) – the Court had to review the compatibility with the EU competition and internal market provisions of certain regulations adopted by international or national sports associations.

2. The present case is a natural follow-up to those cases. Indeed the dispute in the main proceedings concerns a no-poach agreement, concluded by the football clubs playing in the Portuguese football league’s first and second divisions, in agreement with the national football association, during the COVID‑19 pandemic. In order to assess its compatibility with Article 101 TFEU, by its questions, the referring court essentially asks the Court to provide further guidance on the concept of restriction of competition ‘by object’ and on the scope of the principles devolving from the Court’s ‘Meca-Medina case-law’. (6)

3. Largely similar issues are also raised by two other references for a preliminary ruling – those in Cases C‑209/23, RRC Sports, (7) and in C‑428/23, ROGON and Others (8) – in which I will deliver my Opinion today. The present Opinion should, thus, be read together with those other Opinions. For the sake of judicial economy, and in order to assist the readers, I shall attempt to avoid unnecessary repetitions in the three Opinions and, to that end, will make a number of cross-references between them.

II. Facts, procedure and the questions referred

4. The Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (the Portuguese Professional Football League; ‘the LPFP’) is a private-law not-for-profit association whose role is to support and regulate professional football activities in Portugal, and whose ordinary membership consists of sports clubs. The LPFP organises men’s professional football competitions, including the Primeira Liga (First Division) and the Segunda Liga (Second Division).

5. In the 2019/2020 season, 18 teams took part in the First Division and 13 in the Second Division. During that season, on 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID‑19 outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern and, on 11 March 2020, to be a pandemic.

6. On 12 March 2020, the Portuguese Government adopted several measures aimed at containing the risk of the virus spreading. On the same day, the LPFP decided upon and announced the indefinite suspension of the First and Second Divisions, with 10 fixtures still to play.

7. Owing to the worsening of the situation, on 18 March 2020 the Portuguese authorities declared a state of emergency (successively extended until 2 May 2020).

8. On 21 March 2020, the LPFP and the Sindicato de Jogadores Profissionais de Futebol (Union of Professional Football Players; ‘the SJPF’) set up a COVID‑19 Monitoring Committee and began negotiations to ensure the sustainability of the sport in both sporting and financial terms.

9. On 7 April 2020, the LPFP and the SJPF each issued a press release on the status of their negotiations. In its press release, the LPFP indicated, first, that it had received the SJPF’s agreement on a package of legal measures intended to be incorporated into the collective labour agreement applicable to professional football players (‘the CCT’), including the extension of employment contracts and player loan or transfer contracts until the end of the 2019/2020 season, understood to be the date on which the last official match of that season would ultimately be played. The LPFP then specified that no agreement had been reached with the SJPF on the financial issues under discussion, which included the possibility to agree on a salary reduction. This lack of agreement was also referred to by the SJPF in its press release of the same day. Lastly, the LPFP recalled that, in the absence of such an agreement, clubs remained free, among other things, to resort to simplified temporary unemployment or to enter into individual negotiations with their players.

10. On the same day, the LPFP and the clubs participating in the First Division, represented for the most part by their respective presidents, took part in a videoconference, following which the LPFP issued a press release entitled ‘Presidents of [First Division] clubs establish rule for unilateral terminations’. In that press release it was announced that ‘no club [would] hire a player who unilaterally terminate[d] his employment contract, citing difficulties caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic or by any exceptional decision arising from it, and in particular by the extension of the sporting season’. The following day, some of the clubs participating in the Second Division issued a press release announcing their intention to subscribe to the rule agreed on by the clubs in the First Division.

11. At European level, on 7 April 2020, the Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA) – which had set up a working group to address the regulatory questions raised by the pandemic – published the document entitled ‘COVID‑19 – Football Regulatory Issues’. In that document, FIFA envisaged, among other things, that national football associations should be authorised to change the dates of their respective seasons as well as those of the periods for player registration. FIFA also proposed that clubs and players be encouraged to work together to reach agreements on salary deferrals or reductions or, alternatively, that agreements reached between clubs and players be put on hold during the period of suspension of the season.

12. As regards the implementation of the competition rules during the health crisis, on 23 March 2020 the European Competition Network issued a joint statement in which it acknowledged the possible need for cooperation between businesses.

13. On 23 April 2020, the Portuguese Government published a decree-law establishing a set of exceptional and temporary measures in the field of sport, including the authorisation granted to Portuguese sports associations to amend their regulations during and for the duration of the 2019/2020 season, in order to deal with the difficulties caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic. Subsequently, on 30 April 2020, the authorities adopted a resolution establishing a strategy for lifting the containment measures, which included the possibility of resuming the 2019/2020 season in order to complete the competitions.

14. On 4 May 2020, the LPFP, the SJPF and the Associação Nacional de Treinadores de Futebol (National Association of Football Coaches) concluded a memorandum of understanding on the duration of contracts and sports relationships. That memorandum referred, inter alia, to the ‘atypical and exceptional’ situation caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic and the need to safeguard the competitions while respecting the principles of integrity and sporting merit. The memorandum provided that: (i) the 2019/2020 season would end on the day following the last official match of the competitions; and (ii) sports contracts concluded between clubs and players set to expire during the current season would be deemed to be automatically extended until the end of the season. The terms of the memorandum were later integrated into the CCT.

15. On 26 May 2020, the Autoridade da Concorrência (the Portuguese Competition Authority; ‘the AdC’) imposed an interim measure to immediately suspend, for a period of 90 days, the agreement to not recruit or hire football players – from other clubs in the First and Second Divisions – who unilaterally terminated their employment contracts (‘the agreement at issue’). On 2 June 2020, the LPFP and the clubs concerned stated that they agreed with the interim measure.

16. On 28 April 2022, the AdC issued a final decision in the case which found the agreement at issue to be an anticompetitive agreement in infringement of Article 9 (‘Agreements, concerted practices and decisions by associations of undertakings’) of Lei n.º 19/2012, de 8 de maio, que aprova o novo regime jurídico da concorrência (Law No 19/2012 of 8 May 2012 adopting the new legal framework governing competition), and Article 101 TFEU, and imposed financial penalties on the undertakings involved.

17. Twenty-eight of those undertakings...