Financial regulation and professional team sports championship: the conditions of the independence of the regulation authorities

In France, the professional team sports championships are subject to a financial control and regulation under the aegis of a regulation authority 1: la Direction nationale du controle de gestion or DNCG. This regulation authority essentially aims at establishing and securing the clubs' solvency for the next season. If necessary, this can be done through a serie of measures like limiting or forbidding transfers or even relegating the club to a lower division. Acknowledging the independence of the authority that makes decisions involving all parties concerned on the market is fundamental for the clubs to accept these sanctions. The subject of this contribution is to define criteria to apprehend this independence a priori, then to test them on the case of the French professional football championship. This approach leads to a double conclusion. Fundamentally, the football regulation authority is unanimously recognized as independent. This independence results from both institutional and functional rules. And, our case study reveals that the methodology has to integrate criteria related to the functioning of the institution to be able to apprehend its independence (Williamson, 1975).