Belgian and French community groups have laid a formal complaint against UEFA at the European Commission over the right of a football club to play its UEFA Cup ties in any EU member state. They claim that UEFA violated the EU Treaty rights of a Belgian club, Excelsior Mouscron, in insisting that their home cup tie should be played in Belgium against the wishes of both participants.
If the Commission rules in their favour, the case may establish an important legal precedent for Wimbledon if they attempt to move to Dublin against the wishes of the FAI and play their English Premiership matches here as the putative Dublin Dons.
The current row involves lowly Belgian First Division club Excelsior Mouscron and Metz, top of the French First Division, a contest won comfortably by Metz last September when it was eventually played on the former's, small home ground.
Mouscron, a small border town, attracts a substantial following in France and has played matches there in the larger, better-equipped stadium in Villeneuve-d'Ascq. That was the case, most notably, with their previous UEFA Cup qualification match against Cypriot team Limassol - and not a murmur out of UEFA.
When they applied to play the Metz match in the French stadium, however, UEFA said no. Metz had to play their away game abroad, UEFA said, despite a willingness on the part of both teams to play at Villeneuve. Mouscron were furious, as were the locals in the Commune of Lille which owns the Villeneuve stadium.
Groups representing local communities in Lille and Mouscron have now complained to the Commission, arguing that UEFA is in breach of two treaty articles: firstly, by abusing its dominant position in the market, it was jeopardising the commercial viability of the fixture, and, secondly, by illegally interfering in the right of a French enterprise to offer a service to anyone in the EU.
They claim that the Bosman case has already established both the principle that football clubs represent a form of "economic activity" subject to the treaty and that UEFA is clearly a "dominant force" also subject to EU law. They may yet end up in the same European Court of Justice which found against UEFA on transfers in the Bosman case.
Wimbledon's Sam Hammam and Joe Kinnear will be watching closely.
