Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-20-Speech-2-418"
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"en.20080520.29.2-418"2
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"A number of cases coming before the Community courts have confirmed applicability of EC rules to the sports sector.
One such area concerns the free movement of persons, with the goal being to combat discrimination based on nationality in all sports. This goal shall be achieved through political dialogue, through recommendations, structured dialogue with stakeholders and, when appropriate, through infringement procedures initiated by the Commission against Member States.
In addition, the Commission applies EC competition rules to sport organisations in so far as those organisations regulate economic activities. In doing so the Commission takes into account the specificity of sport.
In the Walrave and Donà judgments, for example, the European Court of Justice confirmed that regulations based on nationality which limit the mobility of sportsmen do not conform with the principle of free movement of persons.
In the Bosman judgment the Court examined two types of restrictions which it found to be incompatible with the free movement of persons. Firstly, it prohibits, on grounds of discrimination as to nationality, a UEFA rule which restricted the number of foreign players from EU Member States allowed to participate in national football championships.
Secondly, it condemned as an obstacle to the free movement of persons the FIFA transfer rule requiring the payment of end-of-contract transfer fees in respect of intra-EU transfers of players who are nationals of an EU Member State.
The Piau and Meca Medina cases were the first Court judgments to apply EC competition rules to the sector. Since then the Commission has followed the methodological approach of that case-law in assessing whether a rule adopted by a sports federation or association infringes Articles 81 and 82. Therefore any sports rule which is capable of producing restrictive effects on competition has to be examined on a case-by-case basis in order to determine whether it pursues a legitimate objective.
At the same time the Commission must be satisfied that any anti-competitive effects resulting from such a rule are inherent to the pursuit of its objective and are proportionate to its achievement.
The Commission looked at the issue of international football transfers when it investigated the legality of FIFA rules on transfer fees for players who were still under contract. That investigation was closed in 2002 after FIFA committed itself to modifying its transfer rules on the basis of certain principles which aimed at facilitating transfers.
In the Commission’s White Paper on Sport, which was adopted on 11 July 2007, issues such as free movement of sportspersons were also exhaustively addressed, especially in the accompanying document entitled ‘The EU and Sport: Background and Context’.
In the same legislative package the Commission adopted the Pierre de Coubertin action plan which advocates sport-related action to be taken at EU level and contains a number of proposals to be implemented and/or supported by the Commission in numerous areas of sport."@en1
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