Sports governance became a hot topic within Europe in 2021, particularly in light of the proposed establishment of new competitions, particular football club takeovers, and financial fair play matters, as well as the challenges posed by the Covid 19 pandemic to sport’s sustainability.
The ‘specificity of sport’ was recognised by the amended Treaty of the European Union, which came into force in 2009[1] (although it had been initiated through certain rulings of the European Court of Justice and the decisional practice of the European Commission for some time prior to that).
However, in late 2021, a resolution of the Council of the European Union on a European Sport Model (the “Resolution“) was adopted which calls for EU institutions to take a more substantive role in supporting the sport sector for the next decade and to set out what it considers to be the fundamental features of European sports policy. The Resolution follows the European Parliament overwhelmingly supporting a report on EU Sports Policy (the “Report“).
The Report recognises, amongst other things, the “unique power of sport to promote positive change and transmit values across borders” and its emergence as an “increasingly important economic phenomenon… [which] generates an added value of EUR 279.7 billion of the [European] Union’s GDP”.
This blog post focuses on summarising the key findings and recommendations from the Report.
