Welcome to this bonus episode of Europa Felix.

Earlier this year, I spoke to Miguel Poirish Maduro about EU law and sports.

If you haven't listened to that episode, it's called Can EU Law Save European Football?

And it's a conversation about sports, but also about how European integration can strengthen

good governance and bring back democratic control to European citizens.

Just a few days ago, on the 21st of December, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed

down three high-profile

rulings about EU law and sports.

The three cases are the Super League case, the International Skating Union case and the Royal

Antwerp Football Club case.

I called Miguel up to ask if he could give us his take on these three judgments.

Miguel, welcome back.

Yes, thank you.

We're going into extra time.

Yes, yes, we are an interesting extra time, and it may be a long extra time.

Last Thursday, the Court of Justice gave rulings in three major sports cases. Let's start with the one that attracted the most headlines, and that's, of course, the European Super League case. Are you happy with the judgment of the court? Yes, I'm happy with the ruling of the court. It's a balance judgment where the court, again, with respect to sports, let's use this metaphor,

kept his eyes on the ball and it was not diverted by side issues and instead focused on what was really important. And I think decided it in very solid ground. It does not necessarily mean

that I agree with all the details of the judgment,

but overall I think it's a very good judgment. I would like to take you through a couple of early

reactions to the judgment. The lawyers for the Super League immediately characterized the judgment

as a massive victory for the Super League. How much of that is true? Did the court open the door

for the Super League? It's not true is true? Did the court open the door for the

...