ROGON and RRC Sports: The EU’s Top Court Vindicates a Pragmatic Application of the Antitrust Sporting Exemption to Players’ Agent Regulations

In this article for Covington & Burling, authors Laurie-Anne Grelier, Sofía Gruner Kahn & Deniz Akduman (Covington) discuss two July 2026 judgments by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), ROGON and RRC Sports, which clarify when sporting rules can benefit from the EU’s so-called Meca Medina antitrust exemption. Both cases concerned regulations governing football agents, but the authors argue that the ECJ’s reasoning could have implications for self-regulatory bodies beyond the sports sector.

The judgments recognize sports leagues as interconnected “ecosystems” in which rules may be necessary to ensure fair and ethical operation. The Meca Medina exemption can therefore extend beyond rules governing clubs and players to regulations affecting other participants, including agents. However, each rule must be assessed individually to determine whether it is an inherently harmful, or “by object,” restriction of competition.

The ECJ also confirmed that rules can pursue both commercial and public interest objectives while still qualifying for the exemption. Commercial aims such as improving transparency or addressing information asymmetries do not qualify on their own, while objectives involving ethical standards, player protection and the integrity of sporting competitions can. The framework also extends beyond Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to abuse of dominance under Article 102 and certain EU free-movement restrictions.

The authors stress that the rulings do not give sports organizations blanket immunity. Federations must still ensure that individual rules are not inherently harmful to competition, pursue legitimate public interest objectives and are proportionate to those objectives. At the same time, the decisions broaden the potential reach of Meca Medina, with the ECJ’s “ecosystem” approach potentially relevant to self-regulatory bodies in sectors such as financial and crypto services…

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