Soccer fans net the right result in TV battle

SOCCER fans were the winners in a major contest between the game’s biggest organisers, FIFA and UEFA and the European Court of Justice.

The judges proved to be big supporters of the beautiful game when they ruled that the World Cup and the European Championship matches must remain free to view on TV.

Against the arguments of two of the world’s richest sports bodies, the Luxembourg-based court ruled that these events were of major importance for society — and not just the fanatics.

They disagreed that events like the World Cup and the European Championships could be broken down, with just the finals made available for free on television.

Instead, the judges insisted that people should be able to follow the competitions in their entirety without having to spend money to watch them on TV.

They appreciated the point made by FIFA and UEFA that the sale of the rights to televise the competitions made up a major source of their income.

But the team of judges insisted that the whole tournaments should be regarded as single events that people will want to follow through as each match depends on the result of the previous one.

They disagreed with the argument that they could be divided into ‘non-prime’ matches of the World Cup or ‘non-gala’ matches of the European Championships, and that these were not of such importance for the citizens of that member state.

Instead, they said, the ‘prime’ and ‘gala’ matches, and in the case of the European Championships, matches involving a relevant national team can be considered of major importance for the public of a given EU member state.

As a result, they could be included in a national list specifying the events to which the public should be able to have access on free television.

It is up to each country to draw up its own list of which matches they regard as important for their society, and refuse to allow them to be exclusively available on pay-to-view TV.

The judges also made the point that such a list cannot be drawn up in advance as it is not known which team will make it to the finals.

The court threw out statistics from the footballing bodies to show some matches were not of great interest in the two countries involved in the court case — Britain and Belgium.

Instead, the judges looked at their own figures from the recent World Cup and Euro Championship tournaments, showing they had drawn large numbers of viewers, a significant proportion of whom would not be usually interested in football.

Commission spokesperson Jonathan Todd said the court’s decision will also apply to lists of sporting events submitted by Ireland, Australia, France, Germany, Italy and Finland.

FIFA and UEFA have two months to appeal the decision, but only on points of law.