184. Joint selling.

The European Commission has held¹ that the joint selling of rights to broadcast football matches constitutes a horizontal restriction of competition², although it also acknowledged that joint selling creates certain efficiencies and may, under certain circumstances, qualify for an exemption³. The Commission remedied the negative effects of joint selling by requiring, for example, the selling of rights in several individual rights packages following an open and transparent tendering process, and also required that the duration of rights contracts should not exceed three years and that unsold rights would fall back for individual exploitation by the clubs