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20 ESLJ 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/entersport20 and id is 1 raw text is: ENTERTANMENT\1 AND Cisneros, B. 2022. Premiership Rugby's Response to COVID-19: SPOR1T LAW JOUJRNA A Competition Law Analysis. Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, 20(1): 2, pp.1-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/eslj.1029 ARTICLE Premiership Rugby's Response to COVID-19: A Competition Law Analysis Ben Cisneros Morgan Sports Law, UK ben.cisneros@morgansl.com Professional sport has undoubtedly been hit hard by COVID-19. Clubs and governing bodies have had to adapt rapidly to the public health emergency and have come under great financial and regulatory strain. Some sports have weathered the storm better than others, though, and professional rugby union expe- rienced significant off-field turbulence, with wages reductions seen across the English Premiership. This article will examine the conduct of Premiership Rugby and its clubs during theCOVID-19 crisis from a competition law perspective and will argue that, by acting in concert, Premiership and the clubs may have breached UK competition law. Keywords: Rugby Union; Competition Law; Covid-19 1. Introduction Professional sport has undoubtedly been hit hard by COVID-19. The pandemic has seen sports fixtures and tournaments cancelled and postponed, with fans almost entirely absent from stadia for the best part of a year. This deprived many professional sports clubs of an important source of revenue, whilst the broader economic downturn will inevitably have its own impact. Nonetheless, some sports have weathered the storm better than others. After some initial disruption in March 2020, the Premier League returned, and many of its stars' wages were unaffected (Reuters 2020). Premiership Rugby, too, resumed in the summer of 2020, but the league experienced far greater turbulence off the pitch. March 2020 saw immediate, temporary pay cuts imposed across the Premiership as clubs came to terms with the crisis and tried to cut their losses (The Rugby Paper 2020a). As the pandemic continued, however, clubs sought to make these changes permanent, resulting in heightened tensions and, in some cases, legal action (The Rugby Paper 2020b). Players' salaries were quickly seen as too high and were an easy target for clubs looking to save money. Of course, clubs and players are perfectly entitled to (mutually) vary their contractual agreements in response to the changing circumstances of a pandemic. COVID-19 does not, however, give businesses a 'free pass' as regards competi- tion law (CMA 2020: para 2.4). The Competition and Markets Authority (the 'CMA') announced that it would not take enforcement action against businesses coordinating address concerns arising from the COVID-19 crisis (CMA 2020: para 1.5). However, this policy applied only in relation to 'temporary' action, which is 'appropriate and necessary in order to avoid a shortage, or ensure security, ofsupply', deals with 'critical issues' affecting the public interest, and which benefits consumers (CMA 2020: para 2.3). It seems unlikely that this policy would apply to professional sport or player wages. This article will thus examine the conduct of the Premiership clubs (the 'Clubs') and Premier Rugby Limited ('PRL'), the league's governing body, of which the Clubs are voting members, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be argued that, by acting in concert to reduce players' wages, PRL and the Clubs may have breached UK competition law' 2. The Facts When the Premiership was suspended in March 2020, pay cuts were immediately at the top of the agenda, with tem- porary arrangements being reached across the league to reduce the Clubs' wage bills (Jones 2020). Though there may have been uniformity across much of the league, there was no real suggestion of collusion between clubs or abusive behaviour. Understandably, not all players were happy, but these were short term measures and are not the focus of this article. This article is concerned with what happened once the Clubs decided that these arrangements needed to be made permanent. On 10 June 2020, PRL announced that the Clubs had voted unanimously in favour of lowering the level of the Salary Cap from the start of the 2021/2022 season (Premiership Rugby 2020). PRL explained the change as follows:

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