FIFA & UEFA v Commmission

The CJEU rejected the appeals by FIFA and UEFA against the General Court decisions that there were no grounds to annul the Commission Decisions that found that the UK and Belgium had validly designated the entirety of the World Cup (Belgium) and the entirely of the World Cup and EUROs (United Kingdom) as tournaments which as a whole were events of major importance and which, as such, had to be broadcast on free to air television.  FIFA and UEFA advanced a number of criticisms including complaints that the designations were excessively wide and affected their freedom of services and competition to an unjustified extent. 

The CJEU upheld the General Court's decisions (save on minor reasoning grounds) and found that, once the events were correctly identified as events of major importance, the effects on competition and free movement that flowed from their listing as required to be "free to air" events was necessarily justified.

The judgment can be read here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62011CJ0201:EN:HTML

Tom de la Mare QC appeared for the United Kingdom in all three joined appeals.