League | The EU court made a shocking decision, which may affect Finnish ice hockey – legal expert: “devastating for the SM league”

in Luxembourg The Court of Justice of the European Union, located in

A lawyer familiar with sports law Matti Huhtamäki according to the court's decision will have shocking effects on the whole of European sports.

“Sports federations and sports organizations have had a monopoly system in ball sports for decades: the right to organize national championships and other related competitions. This decision of the EU court breaks the monopoly position of the sports federations”, explains Huhtamäki.

The decision of the EU court is also reflected in the SM league, which has the exclusive right to play for the Finnish championship, blessed by the Ice Hockey Federation. It can be interpreted as a dominant market position.

This fall, there has been a heated discussion about whether the SM league has misused its dominant market position by setting strict license conditions and demanding that teams aspiring to join the league redeem league shares worth up to 3.6–3.8 million euros.

License terms the setting is not wrong, but according to Huhtamäki, in a recent decision of the EU Court, it was stated that the conditions must be transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and relative.

“Fifa and UEFA had no criteria. For this reason, they were considered to have misused their dominant market position,” says Huhtamäki.

“In the case of the SM League, the question is whether the license criteria have been transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and relative up to now. The answer is unequivocally that they are not.”

Huhtamäki justifies his position by saying that the SM league's license criteria are not public.

“For example, no one outside the league clubs and applicant clubs knows the criteria. Then the criteria are secret, discriminatory and arbitrary,” he says.

“It is especially not known to outsiders what kind of license criteria current league clubs are evaluated by.”

The SM League has provided detailed information on the conditions that clubs wishing to join the series must meet. Huhtamäki thinks that is not enough.

“Why the hell can't the license terms be publicly available to everyone? The fact that the conditions are secret is discriminatory and contrary to the decision of the EU court.”

“This is one of the reasons why the EU court's decision is disastrous for the SM league in its current form,” says Huhtamäki.

If the SM league's operations were to be evaluated by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV), the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority could possibly rely on a recent court decision in its evaluation.

League stock the outrageous price has been marveled at throughout the fall. A theory has emerged that setting a price tag of millions could be an abuse of a dominant market position by the SM League.

The price of almost four million made the Jokers back off their league plans for the time being, Kiekko-Espoo, on the other hand, plans to negotiate the price tag of the share.

“Is it appropriate and proportionate that the club has to pay a threshold amount of millions to enter the market? From a competition law point of view, I don't think so,” says Huhtamäki.

SM-liiga has justified the share price by referring to the fact that the amount has been calculated using the same formula as before. Jukurit, KooKoo and Sport paid 1.8 million euros for the share.

The EU Court just stated in its own decision that Fifa and UEFA's regulations on market access were unfounded and discriminatory from the point of view of the freedom to provide services. According to Fifa and UEFA rules, all new series projects, such as the planned Super League, require their approval.

“In my opinion, the SM league's share pricing is exactly the kind of discriminatory and disproportionate activity that is not allowed for a company in a dominant market position,” says Huhtamäki.

Huhtamäki thinks that the recent decision of the EU court also calls into question the operation of the Ice Hockey Association.

“After all, the ice hockey association is a participant in the framework of the closed series, because the SC league was partly created by the association.”