I rapporti tra ordinamento dell’Unione europea e organismi sportivi dopo la sentenza Meca-Medina

This paper focuses on the evolution of the case law of the European Court of Justice and the decisions of the European Commission in the field of sport with the aim to analyse how the approach of the EU institutions towards sport governing bodies has developed over the years. In the Meca-Medina judgment, the Court, called to assess the compatibility of anti-doping measures with EU provisions on competition, established that any rule adopted by these organisms has to be consistent with EU law, unless the actual restriction is intended to pursue a legitimate objective and is proportionate to it. More recently, it appears that the European Commission, alongside some national courts, has gone even further, expressly recognizing for the first time that also some sport eligibility rules, namely forced arbitration clauses, do not comply with EU competition law.