On 9 July 2026, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its judgment in ROGON and Others v Deutscher Fußball-Bund (Case C-428/23), concerning the application of Article 101(1) TFEU to German Football Association rules on football agents.
What you need to know
- Wider field for sports regulation: the ruling confirms that a sports federation may, in principle, issue rules that affect the activities of non-members of the federation where necessary to achieve certain legitimate public interest objectives that are not by nature anti-competitive, in particular where those activities affect the sport's ecosystem.
- The Wouters/Meca-Medina test may apply to such rules provided they do not restrict competition by object. In order to satisfy the test, the rules must pursue a legitimate public interest objective and be suitable, necessary and proportionate to achieving that objective.
- Flexible analytical framework: the Wouters/Meca-Medina test need not always be applied individually to each provision of a set of rules; a more holistic approach may be warranted in some circumstances.
Before the whistle: the dispute and how it reached Luxembourg
The Rogon case concerned rules of the German Football Association (DFB) governing football agents (RfSV), adopted following revised FIFA rules on agents in 2015. The RfSV included licensing obligations, submission to FIFA, DFB and Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) rules and jurisdiction, disclosure obligations, and restrictions on remuneration.
The claimants challenged parts of the RfSV before the German courts, arguing that the rules unlawfully restricted competition. The dispute reached the German Federal Court, which referred two questions to the ECJ for clarification:
- whether the Wouters/Meca-Medina line of case law (Cases C-309/99 and C-519/04 P) can apply to rules of a sports federation that govern the use by its members of services supplied by third party undertakings on an upstream market (here, football agents); and
- if so, whether the Wouters/Meca-Medina assessment must be carried out provision-by-provision, and whether the degree of proximity of those provisions to the activity of the association and of the third-party undertakings affected by the rules is a relevant factor in assessing whether the Wouters/Meca-Medina test is met.
The Wouters/Meca-Medina test, if satisfied, takes restrictions outside the scope of Article 101 if:
i. the rules in question pursue a legitimate objective in the public interest;
ii. the restrictive effects resulting from them are inherent to the pursuit of that objective;
iii. the restrictive effects do not go beyond what is necessary to achieve that objective; and
iv. the restrictions do not amount to restrictions of competition “by object” – this fourth condition was added by the Court in judgments delivered in December 2023 (Case C-333/21 European Superleague, Case C-124/21 P International Skating Union, and Case C-680/21 Royal Antwerp).
The ECJ's ruling is the second in a trio of preliminary references relating to football, in which Advocate General Emiliou delivered opinions on the same day in May 2025, the other two being (i) Tondela, which concerned a no-poach agreement between Portuguese football clubs during the Covid-19 pandemic and was decided on 30 April 2026 (Case C-133/24); and (ii) RRC Sports, which concerns FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations, the judgment in which is due on 16 July 2026 (Case C-209/23).
The first question: sports federations can regulate the activities of non-members
After confirming that the rules at issue could fall under Article 101 – as rules governing economic activities adopted by an association of undertakings not exercising public powers – the ECJ goes on to hold that:
- the mere fact that the rules govern non-members does not, of itself, mean that they constitute a by-object restriction;
- none of the Wouters/Meca-Medina conditions excludes, as a matter of principle, rules adopted by a sporting association that govern the use of services provided by non-member companies.
In other words, a rule need not affect only the members of the club or association that enacted it in order to benefit from the Wouters/Meca-Medina test. Indeed, the ECJ observes that rules that affect non-members may be necessary in order to achieve certain legitimate public interest objectives, particularly where the activities being regulated may affect the "eco-system” that is regulated by the sports federation. In that regard, it notes that various categories of economic operators, including clubs, national associations, players and agents, must interact and cooperate to a certain extent in order to ensure the viability of football and its appeal to fans and spectators. As regards football agents specifically, the ECJ notes that agents' activities can influence team composition, which in turn affects sporting performance, which is closely tied to team composition.
The second question: individual or holistic assessment
In response to the national court's second question, the ECJ confirms that rules should not be artificially read in isolation or artificially grouped together – different parts of a set of regulations might pursue different ends, such that a separate assessment may be merited; on the other hand, a more holistic approach to a set of regulations may also be appropriate where they operate together or are indivisible or dependent upon one another.
What Rogon does and does not change
The ECJ's ruling does not materially change the Wouters/Meca-Medina test as interpreted in the Superleague case: for the test to apply, the restriction at issue must not be by object; it must pursue a legitimate public-interest objective; and it must be suitable, necessary and proportionate to achieving that objective.
The value in Rogon lies in its affirmation that the test is not confined to rules that apply only to the rule-maker's members. The judgment is also welcome in recognising that football is an interdependent ecosystem involving multiple economic operators whose activities are connected and who need to interact and cooperate to ensure the viability of the sport and its attractiveness to consumers.
As regards the impact of football agents in that ecosystem, the ECJ acknowledges that agents' activities influence team composition and, therefore, sporting performance. As a result, rules governing those activities may also be justified by the objective of integrity in sports competitions, which serves the public interest.
For sports federations, the judgment is good news and the takeaway is clear: they are not precluded per se from regulating third-party activities linked to the sporting ecosystem they govern. The ECJ's judgment in Rogon will inform its forthcoming ruling in RRC Sports, due on 16 July 2026, in relation to FIFA's Football Agent Regulations, which is expected to provide further guidance for sports federations on the application of EU competition law to sporting rules.
Authors: Peter Turner-Kerr and Raphael Dionis
