Lennart Johansson was relaxed, precise but dismissive. He told me: “This has no significance and no relevance. In sport we have our own rules and regulations and even referees. UEFA is based in Switzerland. European Union laws do not affect us. Their lawyers have no place in our football.”
Johansson, Swedish president of the European federation, was speaking to me in the summer of 1995 about a barely-noticed legal action that had been set before the European Court of Justice. But Johansson was living in an ivory tower.
That ivory tower came crashing down six months later. December 15, 1995 was the historic date on which the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled in favour of a restraint-of-trade
