Even if you can't make the game, where there's a will.......
Watching United at three o’clock on a Saturday down your local on a ‘dodgy foreign channel’ may still be illegal, but buying those televised games yourself is not according to reports.
For the once the European High Court which usually bothers itself with the ripeness of tomatoes or other such frivolous drivel, has actually done us all a fabour by ruling that fans can buy Premier League televised games, wherever they want.
The Guardian notes:
Football fans will potentially be able to watch cut-price Premier League matches, after the European Union’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that it is not illegal for individuals to buy set-top box decoder cards from foreign broadcasters.
The European court of justice ruled that the FA Premier League cannot stop individuals from seeking better deals for TV sports subscriptions than that offered by BSkyB – which paid more than £1bn for the UK broadcast rights for Premier League matches – from foreign broadcasters.
The ECJ said attempting to prohibit the “import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards is contrary to the freedom to provide services and cannot be justified either in light of the objective of protecting intellectual property rights or by the objective of encouraging the public to attend football stadiums”.
However, the court ruled against the bid by Karen Murphy, the landlady of the Red, White and Blue pub in Portsmouth, to be allowed to use a Greek decoder card to show live Premier League matches to pub goers at much cheaper rates than BSkyB charges commercial premises in the UK on copyright grounds.
The ECJ said the transmission in a pub is a “communication to the public”, which means that without the permission of the FA Premier League Murphy is in breach of the copyright directive. This directive would not stop individuals buying foreign decoder cards for domestic use.
Although it still means your local landlord will have to keep his ‘dodgy screenings’ well away from plod, there’s no reason why you can’t watch United on Scandinavian television or whatever, should you so wish.
All it will do is prevent more European people from watching premier league which is, of course, what Blatter, Platini etc want.! Now Premier league will simply do a deal with one European supplier and cut others such as the dodgy Greeks out of the market. The viewer loses again!