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Jeff Carlisle
Relevant sports settled their antitrust lawsuit with the American football Federation on Wednesday, according to the US District Court for the South District of New York. Combined with the earlier settlement with FIFA just a year ago, the way for relevant organization of matches in the US and elsewhere is now clear.
The submission reads: “According to Fed.
The term “with prejudice” means that in the future it is banned from fulfilling the same claim or court proceedings against the USSF.
The action partly claimed that the USSF was conspired with FIFA to detain its consent to organize the matches of a foreign league in the US and that it had happened to give the advantage to football United Marketing (SUM).
Sum is a marketing arm MLS And a competitor relevant in the promotion of international football matches. Now there is no legal obstacle in such a match for the future.
In his statement for ESPN, a USSF spokesman said, “We are glad that we can build this matter for us because we continued to focus on the growth of the game and use the momentum of football from the US before the World Cup next year.”
Jeffrey Kessler, the main lawyer for the relevant company Winston & Strawn, would only confirm that the case has been resolved. Neither Kessler nor the USSF revealed the settlement conditions.
MLS, which is likely to face increased competition in the light of the settlement, did not answer immediately to the request for comment.
Judicial action, first filed in 2019, occurred after a relevant, dominated by Miami Dolphins Stephen M. Ross, signed an agreement on commercial rights with the Spanish laliga and tried to host the league match including Barcelona and Girona On Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. Such matches must be approved by the National Federation of the League and also where the match will be played.
On this occasion, the Royal Spanish Football Federation was rejected. He later tried to organize the Ecuadorian League match between Barcelona and Guayaquil City, but the USSF refused to sanction this event.
The USSF said that its reason for rejection of relevant consent to the organization of the match was due to FIFA policy, which was accepted in 2018 by its ruling council that “emphasized the sporting principle that the official league matches must be played in the territory of the members’ association”.
The Court was rejected in July 2021. He relevant that the intention of the agreement was to “observe FIFA policy and boycott league, clubs and players who participate in the United States”. Judge Valerie Caproni decided that compliance with FIFA policy, without other factual accusations, was not enough to prove that the USSF had concluded an illegal agreement with FIFA on the “output restriction”.
However, the Court of Appeal canceled this decision in May 2023 and stated that “relevant credibly claims that the 2018 policy reflects the contractual obligation of competitors to reduce the head of the head”.
The CEO Elizabeth B. Prelogar filed a 23 -page short short, in which the Court of Appeal should become a case to the Supreme Court.
The USSF “did not act independently. Rather, he participated in a member association that adopted a policy that bound members of the Association, and triggered this policy as its justification for rejecting the approval of the proposed matches,” the government wrote.
The government added that the USSF “was not a randomly selected member of FIFA, nor was it a passive or unconscious passers -by to accept and enforce the 2018 policy”.
When he dealt with FIFA relevant last year, he said that “FIFA agreed to change the current FIFA policies in terms of playing official seasonal games outside the league.”
For this purpose, FIFA announced on May 15 last year The fact that it has created a working group of 10-15 members who “consider a revised legal framework at the FIFA level, which deals with i) Rules, procedures and processes for enabling intermediate football matches or competitions and II) Criteria to be asked to permit such matches or competitions.”
However, he maintained the USSF as the defendant, while Kessler said in 2024 that ESPN was back that if both sides did not satisfy, “these antimonopoly demands will be fully promoted in their entirety”.
In the coming months, it will now determine to what extent the foreign leagues will earn to organize league matches in the US
