The Provincial Court of Madrid, in a harsh order against UEFA and LaLiga to which this newspaper has had access, rejects the challenge of the Superliga judge, Manuel Ruiz de Lara, and describes the actions of both as “bad faith” since they have had the objective of “removing the magistrate from the case” in order to torpedo the judicial process “with reprehensible maneuvers.” For this reason, the court sentences them to pay costs and imposes a fine on them for said behavior..
The magistrate Ruiz de Lara is no longer in charge of the Commercial Court number 17, of which Judge Sofía Gil is now the head, who in turn came from number 2 in Barcelona. She is the one who will now deal with the ‘Superliga case’, but the Provincial Court of Madrid replaces Ruiz de Lara in the procedure “when appropriate”. Ruiz de Lara was the one who raised with the Court of Luxembourg the preliminary ruling on the alleged dominant position of UEFA.
UEFA and LaLiga requested the disqualification of the Superliga judge, Manuel Ruiz de Lara, who had adopted various decisions contrary to their interests, including the precautionary measures that protect the Super League UEFA’s actions, as well as the referral of the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which will decide on this issue.
Section 28 of the Provincial Court, made up of magistrates García, Caballero and Zarzuelo, has ruled that the Superliga judge behaved in accordance with the law at all times, that there is no reason to challenge him or question his way of proceeding and that UEFA and LaLiga’s request is unfounded. For all this, he gives a severe slap and fine to the plaintiffs, UEFA and LaLiga, with the amount in the medium-high limit of the legal scale and replaces Judge Ruiz de Lara “in the procedure when appropriate”.
The case of the Super League will continue to be settled in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which must rule in the coming months on the issue raised by Ruiz de Lara who asked the Curia if UEFA enjoys a monopoly in European competitions.