The case stemmed from FIFA’s ban on third-party ownership of players’ rights, challenged as anti-competitive.
Ivanova notes that the judgment upholds CAS efficiency while asserting EU law’s supremacy—competition law being central to EU public policy. Crucially, if an arbitral award has not been subject to judicial review within an EU jurisdiction, it cannot claim finality (res judicata) when EU principles are engaged.
The decision, Ivanova writes, integrates sports arbitration into the EU legal order, ensuring fundamental rights prevail even over arbitral autonomy.




