LONDON: Britain and Belgium can keep major sports events like football’s World Cup on free TV, the European Union’s top court ruled, rejecting appeals from the sport’s governing bodies that wanted to sell them instead to cash-rich pay TV companies.
FIFA, world football ruling body, and UEFA, its European counterpart, had challenged existing rules saying all 64 games in the World Cup must be shown on free-to-air channels in Britain and Belgium to ensure as many viewers as possible can watch. In Britain, the rule also applies to the European championship.
FIFA and UEFA argued the regulation deprived them of revenues from selling rights to their most popular events. In Britain, the rules mean the World Cup finals and Euro tournaments are shared between the BBC and ITV. In Belgium, public broadcasters VRT (Dutch) and RTBF (French) have the World Cup rights.
“The Court dismisses the appeals brought by FIFA and UEFA in their entirety,” the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said.
FIFA, which earned more than $2.4bn in TV rights from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, said it was disappointed with the court decision.
FIFA said its policy was to ensure that a national team’s games were on free TV in their home country, as well as the opening match, semi-finals and finals of a World Cup. Other games in the month-long tournament could be left to pay TV. REUTERS
