Le federazioni e il mercato dell'organizzazione degli eventi sportivi: uno sguardo al passato per cercare di capire il presente (... ed immaginare il futuro)

During the 90s, sport was transformed in a product of entertainment with an incredible economic importance, thanks to sponsorship and advertising. Sports federations, because of their authority, performed an economic monopoly position: the question was about if they were allowed to prevent the rise of new kind of sports events and to keep out other subjects of that market. The European Commission (legal case about FIA) and the European Court of Justice (legal case about MOTOE), in addition to other national legal cases (in Ireland, Belgium and Sweden), actively contributed to detect the conflict between the free competition and the general principle of unique federation for each sport. Furthermore, they marked the limit of federations’ activities, in order to avoid the warping of the free competition. On the one side, it was necessary to verify if a federation may be qualified as an enterprise, thanks to the difference between regulating and even making economic activity; on the other side, if the barring of the competitors from the market is proportionate to the federations aims, such as good sportsmanship and the regularity of sports competitions.