Upcoming World Cup and Euro football tournaments will not be shown in the UK by pay-to-view services like Sky, the European Union's General Court has effectively ruled.

The Court this week judged that the European Commission (EC) had been right to approve a list of games, including all 64 World Cup and all 31 Euro matches, that Britain believes are too important to be presented only to punters willing to pay to watch them.

European law allows member states to draw up a list of sporting and other events which, when televised, must be made available to as many nationals as want to watch them. That effectively means limiting them to free-to-air channels.

Each nation's list must be okayed by the EC. The EC duly approved the UK list, but Fifa and Uefa sought to challenge that decision.

It's in both organisations' interest to ensure as many matches as possible are off the list so they can try to sell the games' broadcast rights to pay-per-view broadcasters, which generally pay more for transmission permission than the free-to-air services do.

Fifa and Uefa insisted that the UK - or any other nation; they also complained about Belgium's list - can't rightfully claim that the whole of the World Cup and Euro tournaments are a matter of national importance, only certain matches within them, such as the finals.

The General Court disagreed - not least because EU media regulations specify the World Cup as an example of a tournament that can be considered of major importance to a footballing nation, likewise the Olympics - and ruled that the EC had been right to rubber-stamp Britain's list.

As a result, Ofcom, Britain's media watchdog, can legally mandate that the World Cup and Euro games be shown by free-to-air channels. ®

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/02/17/f ... cer_clash/

Score for HMG and the European Commission. UEFA and FIFA can get [LIFTED].

if there was any clearer way of showing that FIFA and UEFA give not a [LIFTED] about football, only making money than the fact they bothered to contest this, I can't think of one.

Hold on is this the same FIFA that said the next world cup was to be in rush to get more people interested in football, yet they are not interested in getting more Europeans to watch the games.

I am ambivalent about football, but do think that it is far too important to be on pay per view.

+1

Terrible news. It would be great to clear that carp off my TV schedule. They always move or cancel like the one single decent show to make way for it

You're thinking of Wimbledon.

I wish they'd take Wimbledon off and show the Cricket instead.

I think it's sport in general. You'd thing with over 9000 to choose from, they wouldn't have to clutter up the main channels with it. Stick it on BBC42 and leave the scheduling alone FFS.

I think at this point, there isn't really any such thing as 'the main channels'. They're a historical oddity. ITV has no more precedence than More 4 or BBC 3 in the current digital world, it's just got a lower channel number. Plus with the advent of 'smart' PVRs and series link, it's really not so important which channel a programme is on anyway.

If the sport is on one channel, even with freeview you have a myriad of other ones to choose from. if there really is 'nothing on' at that point, it's the collective fault of the other 56 channels, not the one that's showing sport.

Jon

Despite me rolling my eyes and heading for the non-sport loaded cable channels when things like the World Cup turn up, I think it would be wrong to barricade them behind the Murdoch PayWall (or anyone elses’ PayWall), which is where they will end up otherwise.

That is why they could have a freeview sports channel for such sports. I would not want Sky to get any more powerful.

I am really surprised that BBC Sport doesn’t have its own channel by now. It seems to be living with its own identity a lot of the time, even crediting itself on other BBC channels.

I agree. Why not even have a joint ITV/BBC digital channel so that neither loose out. It could show ads with the revenue being split between them, just for major events.