Premier League TV ruling: what does it mean?

WHAT HAPPENED?Portsmouth landlady Karen Murphy has won a landmark ruling from the European Court of Justice after she was prosecuted for using a Greek satellite decoder to broadcast live Premier League football matches in her pub. After being fined in this country she appealed against the decision and the case was sent to the highest court in Europe, the ECJ, which today ruled that it was not illegal to watch games using decoders from foreign broadcasters.

The ECJ said broadcasters could not claim "territorial exclusivity", and ruled that anything that prevented "television viewers from watching the broadcasts with a decoder card in other [EU] member states is contrary to EU law."

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?The ruling could have massive consequences for the Premier League and anyone else who sells broadcast rights on a country-by-country basis in Europe. It also has huge repercussions for the broadcasters.

The bottom line is that the Premier League can no longer stop anyone in Britain from signing up to a TV sports deal from a foreign broadcaster, even though BSkyB paid more than £1bn for the exclusive UK broadcast rights.

While the Premier League made a huge amount of money from BSkyB in this country it sold the rights to show games on mainland Europe for just £130m the last time they were up for grabs.

Sky's success was built on the back of having exclusive rights to the Premier League, but it has now effectively lost that position – at least until the current rights deal comes to an end in 18 months time. To make matters worse for Sky, they are barred, unlike foreign broadcasters, from showing games that kick off at 3pm on a Saturday.

This doesn't just affect the Premier League. Uefa, for example, auctions the rights to the Champions League on a regional basis and the film and TV industry, which sells its products country-by-country, could be forced to rethink the way it does business. Kudos, the company behind TV shows Spooks and Life on Mars, has warned it could affect investment in British TV production.

WHAT NEXT?The Premier League has to decide what to do when it goes to market to sell the rights from the 2013/14 season onwards. Media lawyer Daniel Geer told the BBC that the Premier League will be considering options including a pan-EU tender, only offering the rights in some EU states or even setting up its own channel.

However, not everyone is convinced we should abide by the ECJ edict. Tory MP Damian Collins, a member of the culture, media and sport select committee, said: "I think that there should be some Parliamentary scrutiny of this ruling and consideration of its wider implications for copyright, sports rights and the money that goes from those rights back into sport." 

It will also have to be interpreted by the high court in the UK, and that could take several months.

As for Murphy, the landlady of the Red, White and Blue pub, she is waiting for the dust to settle on the case before she starts showing football once again, and copyright issues that the ruling is not as clear-cut as it appears with regard to showing matches in public places. ·