Gameday for Football Agents: What ROGON and RRC Sports mean in practice (Part 4)

This^[1] is the fourth and final part of the article series on the ROGON^[2] (C-428/23) and RRC Sports^[3] (C-209/23) rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR) are FIFA’s new regulatory framework for football agents operating in the international transfer system, introduced in 2023. Part 1 (see here) of the article series introduced the two rulings and examined ROGON; Part 2 (see here) considered which FFAR rules restrict competition by object under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (prohibition on anti-competitive agreements), and how the rest may be justified under the Wouters/Meca-Medina case law or Article 101(3) TFEU (exemption for restrictive agreements whose benefits outweigh their harm). Part 3 (see here) covered dominance (Article 102 TFEU), free movement (Article 56 TFEU) and data protection.

This Part 4 steps back to consider what the rulings mean in practice, and what remains for the Landgericht Mainz (the referring German court) to decide.

It looks at:

• Summary of key findings in ROGON and RRC Sports
• What the rulings mean in practice
• Impact on football agents
• What should sports governing bodies be aware of
• Impact of the rulings beyond sport
• Competition law particularities
• What is left for the referring national court to decide?
  • Restrictions of competition
  • Justification / exemption
  • Free movement of services and data protection

Note: The authors formed part of the team that represented FIFA in the RRC Sports case.