By Andrew Warshaw
July 19 – In a blow to the revenue-boosting hopes of FIFA and UEFA but a huge boost for fans without access to pay-tv, the European Court of Justice has ruled countries can insist on the World Cup and European Championship continuing to be made available on free-to-air channels.
Football’s two main governing bodies, which own the commercial rights to both tournaments, had expected to win their appeal against earlier rulings in favour of Britain and Belgium, who argued the two events were of national interest and must be protected as “listed”.
FIFA had long accepted and understood that certain World Cup matches – such as the opening game, semifinals and final and matches featuring the host nation – should remain free-to-air. But both it and UEFA wanted the right to sell other fixtures into the highly lucrative pay-TV market. That has now been scuppered after a long-running battle.
In Britain the World Cup and Euros have been among a number of ‘protected’ sporting events considered important for free-to-air viewing. Others include the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Open golf championship.
In its ruling, the European Court upheld previous judgments from the General Court preventing pay-tv broadcasters from having exclusive rights to the finals of both main football competitions.
The EU’s highest court sympathised with FIFA and UEFA up to a point, agreeing that not all matches could necessarily be deemed priority events. However the Court concluded that Britain and Belgium were entitled to ring-fence such tournaments as a whole, saying it “dismisses the appeals brought by FIFA and UEFA in their entirety”.
European states, it added, should be allowed to protect programmes “which they deem to be of major importance for society” and show them for free. Otherwise it “would deprive a substantial proportion of the public of the possibility of following those events on free television”.
FIFA and UEFA had argued that they were being unfairly prevented from selling such events for maximum value and that not all games “could constitute events of major importance for the general public”.
Although broadcast rights have already been secured for the 2014 World Cup, there were growing fears in some countries, notably the UK, that pay-tv would have taken over in time for the 2018 tournament in Russia, mirroring its domination of club football.
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