EU against

[Gromit]

// The Premier League have lost their case in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against a pub landlady who used a foreign decoder to show live matches at 3pm on Saturdays. //

http://www.telegraph....Court-of-Justice.html

The Premier League sell their packages to territories, creating monopolies. Sky and ESPN (in the UK) are then able to sell to UK viewers uncontested, and therefore at a high price. This has now been ruled against (not yet quite a victory). We should now be able to shop around Europe for the cheapest football packages.

A victory for UK football fans from the ECJ.

Unless you disagree?

[Gromit]

Not sure what happened with the title. Should be

"ECJ Against Rip-Off TV Football"

[DrFilth]

to be honest gromit i thought she would lose her case i use to know a pub in salford that had them on but if a stranger went in the pub the telly would be turned off

[Old_Geezer]

I don't think any manufacturer/supplier of equipment/services should be able to create boundares in order to rip off one section compared to another. Either their product/service makes a profit at the low price, or it needs to be charged at a higher feasible price everywhere.

[pa___ul3]

Definitely! Although pubs round here have been showing games on dodgy channels for years!
It may well save a few pubs from closure!

[DrFilth]

sky make a lot of money from pubs and clubs with the football matches

[bibblebub]

One possibility that has been mooted is that they won't sell the live tv rights for Saturday 3pm kickoffs to other countries, and so everything in this country will stay as it is.

[jno]

Europe defends ordinary Englishwoman against the Sky Superstate. Sounds good to me.

[DrFilth]

think this is more football league than sky

[pa___ul3]

I can't see that happening bibblebub, too big a market, particularly in Asia, to mess about. The likes of Liverpool, Man U and City would be devastated.

[Gromit]

Bibblebub

They sell the English Premier League to 103 countries. It would be cutting off their own noses to stop selling to over 100 countries just to stop Englishmen and women watching footy on TV on saturday afternoon.

[Gromit]

Correction:

// The English Premier League is the world's most watched sporting league, being broadcast to over 600 million people in over 200 countries worldwide. //

[Haggisdj]

The fear has always been that showing football at 3 o'clock on a Saturday will stop supporters from turning up at their local club. If this does prove to be true then lower league clubs could find themselves in even more trouble than they already are, the rich will get richer and the poor get poorer

[SeaJayPea]

Sky charge pubs based on their rateable value. This was a deal handed to them by Mr A. Blair. My local, a small pub in north London, was presented with a bill for last season of £1600 a month! They'd need to sell over £4,000 EXTRA to pay for that. That's just not going to happen. Basically, Sky have priced themselves out of the market. It's no wonder publicans are looking for something cheaper. Mind you, the Albanian commentators aren't a patch on Alan Parry.

[youngmafbog]

Oddly I know pubs in Belgium that use UK decoders ! They dont have the tell-tale pint in the corner though !

Just think, if they cant rip us off we might even see less of the stupid salaries paid to a load of thicko's to use on prostitues etc. Won't happen though is my guess, they will find a way around the ruling.

[New Judge]

Essentially what Sky and/or the Premier League are saying by their argument is that they should be able to control who receives what on TV sets in the UK. This is an outrageous argument and it should not have taken a ruling by the ECJ to put them straight.

Having said that, owners and managers of pubs that pay the ridiculous sums demanded by Sky to show their football need to get round to the doctors. It is no use them moaning about the costs. If they all refused to take the programmes it would not be long before the prices came down.

And finally pubs should not be allowed to show football matches anyway. The football clubs and the police go to great lengths to ensure that the risk of trouble at matches is minimised. They segregate opposing supporters; they pen one lot in until the other has left; specific laws relating to behaviour inside football grounds were enacted. Yet they can all walk round the corner, pile into a pub and none of this applies. People who want to watch football should either go to the match or watch it on TV in the comfort of their own home. It would free up the pubs for those who want a pint and a chat (which is what I thought pubs were for).

[Quizmonster]

Great result...good Pompey pub, too.

[rov1100]

When the FA renegotiate the screen contracts in 2 years time probably the Greeks will find they are paying the full price and this landlord will suffer the hate consequences.

You have to admire her though taking on a world conglomerate like SKY. I wonder how they get away with having a monopoly which is totally against the public interest when it comes to competition and pricing.

[eagle eye]

I think alot of you have misread the judgement. "The ECJ now says national laws which prohibit the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards are contrary to the freedom to provide services".

It does not say that her showing live football was legal, it only refers to the decoder. It also ruled that broadcast live football matches were NOT copyright, so SKY will probably only need to delay broadcast by 5 minutes or so to enable the match to be classed as copyright. It also said that any inherent copyright part of the broadcast (music, logo's images etc) would need the copyright owners permission.

As a season ticket holder at a premier league club I consider it wrong that cheapskates can watch it live on the cheap, with relatively little financial input into the product that entertains them.

It could affect not just football for the few, but other sports/films/dvd's/ even music concerts. So the minority cheapskates will have ruined it for the true supporter of the event.